Will iiiil 




Class 

Copght'N 0 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 




S. P. JACOBS. 



Christ in Ethics 



By 

S. P. JACOBS 



Broadway Publishing Co. 

835 Broadway, New York 



Copyright, igi2, 
By 

S. P. JACOBS 
Bloomdale, Ohio, U. S. A. 



©CI. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 



Prologue 5 

I. Ethics Defined 9 

II. The Moral Faculty 12 

III. Ethics and Religion 20 

IV. Ethics and Christianity 31 

V. Ethics and Christ 51 

VI. Individual Ethics 82 

VII. Ethical Prophylaxis 128 

VIII. Christ in Government 149 

IX. The Divine Provision 219 

X. Future Endless Punishment 236 



PROLOGUE. 



Ethical writers in common base Christian ethics 
on the principles of Christ. 

This book bases Christian ethics on the principles 
and person of Christ. The relation of Christ to 
Christian ethics is not only doctrinal, but also vital, 
personal. "I am the vine; ye are the branches," 
expresses this relation. 

Apart from Christ Himself real Christian ethics 
cannot exist : "Without me ye can do nothing" 
(John 15 :5). Christian ethics apart from the person 
of Christ is like man's body apart from the personal 
spirit that animated it. 

This subject is discussed under ten heads. Chap- 
ter I. defines Christian ethics related to history, to 
theology, to aesthetics, and to psychology. The em- 
inent philosopher, Hermann Lotze, rightly declares 
"The true beginning of metaphysics is in ethics." 

Chapter II. treats of the moral faculty at once 
basal and chief in the hierarchy of mental forces. 
Its primacy is seen in its less likelihood to err, and 
in pointing obligation to Deity. It lies at the basis 
of religion and all moral reform. 

Chapter III. shows ethics to be inseparable from 
religion. Religion constitutes and conditions ethics. 
God in His kingdom of righteousness and retribu- 
tion (Rom. 1 :16-17) is the stay of Christian ethics. 

Chapter IV. traces historic ethics advancing to- 
ward Christian ethics. The moral darkness and 

5 



the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity 
during the middle ages, seem now incredible. 

Yet war, most cruel of crimes against mankind, 
has been generally approved until late ; but it is rap- 
idly passing out of favor. 

Chapter V. views Christ creating man anew, and 
indwelling and heading a new race styled a "new 
creation" (2 Cor. 5:17). Christ's consciousness be- 
comes the Christian consciousness (John 17:21-23). 

Chapter VI. discusses at length the results of 
Christ dwelling in the believer, changing his entire 
being (Rom. 12:1,2), counteracting heredity and 
shaping offspring. Sexual hygiene secures power 
of parenthood, infancy, youth, and marital purity, 
disclosing marital wrongs and crimes menacing the 
family and the nation. 

Chapter VII. deals with diet, dress, and personal 
habits, respecting the foregoing evils. 

Chapter VIII. "Christ in government" begins a 
new era in politics and business. Capital and labor 
complement each other. Oneness in all interests 
unites all mankind in actual brotherhood, and 
world-leadership is the crown of moral leadership. 

Chapter IX. shows the Divine provision enabling 
business and government to be carried on without 
sin. By the atonement we participate in God's holi- 
ness and sovereignty, "are called into His kingdom 
and glory" (1 Thess. 2:12). All this is implied in 
the pre-Pentecostal prayer taught by Christ to His 
disciples: "Thy kingdom come; they will be done 
in earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6 :10). In heaven 
all employments and government proceed without 
sin. 

Chapter X. discusses future endless punishment 
as just retribution upon those who ignore and de- 
spise God's rule in time and eternity: "Seeing it is 
a righteous thing with God to recompense tribula- 

6 



tion to them that trouble you . . . When the 
Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His 
mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on 
them that know not God, and that obey not the 
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ : who shall be pun- 
ished with everlasting destruction from the pres- 
ence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power" 
(2 Thess. 1:6-9). 

Future endless punishment of the impenitent, per- 
sistent wicked is required to vindicate Divine right- 
eousness and to maintain the moral welfare of the 
universe ; and herein it is a manifestation of Divine 
love, as this chapter shows. 

This book is sent forth to meet a present need. 
Readers who think the writer extreme on certain 
points; instance, eugenics and marital purity, also 
the conducting municipal, state and national gov- 
ernment free from wrong, are cordially invited to a 
careful study of these points as supported by mod- 
ern scientific research and Holy Writ. 

A second careful reading of this book will richly 
repay the effort. 

That it may advance the cause of personal purity 
and promote the domestic and political welfare, is 
the prayer of the writer, 

S. P. JACOBS, 

Bloomdale, O. 



7 



Christ In Ethics 



CHAPTER I. 
Ethics Defined. 

Ethics is a progressive science. It will progress 
while man progresses. Its terms, as to content, ex- 
tent, and intent, are not of fixed limit, like those in 
mathematics. In kind, scope, and depth, ethics ad- 
vances with man's advancing toward ever higher 
and higher perfection in self-improvement and in 
social, civic, and nature-culture ; for nature de- 
graded cy man's fall in Eden, shares with him the 
restoration (Rom. 8 :19-22). This point will be made 
clear further on. The moral significance of crea- 
tion cannot be destroyed. 

Ethics has been variously defined. This comes 
from viewing this question from different stand- 
points. From the standpoint of moral obligation, 
Noah Webster says, "Ethics is the science of duty." 
As related to the Divine government, Dr. Wayland 
calls it "the science of moral law." From the view- 
point of man's free agency, President Mark Hopkins 
defines it as "The science of man choosing and act- 
ing from choice under moral law." 

Furthermore, "Ethics is the science of the moral" 
( Wuttke) ; "The science which teaches men their 

9 



10 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



duty and the reasons for it" (Paley) ; ''The science 
which treats of morals, the science of right" 
(Haven) ; "The systematic application of the ulti- 
mate rule of right to all conceptions of moral con- 
duct" (Hiccock) ; "A code of rules for the regulation 
of conduct among men as they should be" (Herbert 
Spencer). 

The writer would define Christian ethics to be the 
free concurrence of God and man in all moral rela- 
tions and activities, according to the New Testa- 
ment; or having all the mind of Christ (Phil. 2:5; 
Eph. 4:13) and walking as He walked (Col. 1:10) 
"in all manner of living" (1 Pet. 1 :15.) 

A mental concept, a feeling, a motive, a principle, 
an act, a character, is moral when right can be de- 
clared of it; contrariwise, it is immoral. 

Ethics involves kindred sciences. Viewing the 
sense of the beautiful in character, in nature, and in 
art, ethics enters the province of aesthetics. Con- 
sidering the faculties of the mind employed in the 
moral activities of the human personality, gives to 
ethics quite a section in psychology. Right, domi- 
nating the community, regulating commerce, perme- 
ating all business corporations, state legislation and 
international treaties, introduces ethics into the 
realm of political economy. To study man at his 
best as related to God and His law; as related to 
sin and its guilt, pollution, and penalty; as related 
to the Divine atonement securing salvation from sin 
and restoration to God, involving all the moral pre- 
cepts of the gospel, includes in ethics largely the 
domain of systematic theology. 

Ethics and history are very closely related. In 
fact, history is concrete ethics, in large part. His- 
tory is largely the product of ethical forces in man- 
kind. Rightly does Dr. Adolf Wuttke declare: "A 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



11 



real understanding of history is not possible with- 
out ethics ; universal history is the realization of the 
moral — the good and also the evil — within human- 
ity; hence history . . . is an important teacher 
of morality" (Christian Ethics, Vol. I., p. 17). 

High culture gives ethics a wide sweep. It domi- 
nates every human activity. Every faculty takes 
higher rank. It throws new light upon relations to 
God and to mankind. A chief among foremost phil- 
osophers, Hermann Lotze, has well said: "The true 
beginning of metaphysics is ethics." 



12 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



CHAPTER II. 

The Moral Faculty. 

A faculty is not a member of the mind as the eye 
or the ear is a member, or organ of the body. "Man 
is not an organism, but an intelligence acting 
through an organism" (McCosh). 

Noah Webster defines faculty as "the ability to 
act, to perform, whether inborn or cultivated; the 
capacity for any of the well-known classes of men- 
tal activity." 

The entire personality acts in a given way, or is 
conscious of a given state (Porter) ; hence the 
moral faculty is the ability, capacity for moral act- 
ing and moral feeling. 

Unlike the other faculties, as memory, reason, and 
imagination, the moral faculty, or conscience, has in 
it the element of authority, producing a feeling of 
obligation. 

Defined more fully, conscience is the perception 
of right and of wrong in act, feeling, and motive, 
under a sense of obligation to embrace the right 
and oppose the wrong. Dr. Charles Hodge rightly 
declares: "It is admitted that conscience is less 
liable to err than reason ; and when they come into 
conflict, real or apparent, our moral nature is the 
stronger, and will assert its authority in spite of 
all we can do" (System. Theology, Vol. I., p. 7). 

This sense of moral obligation implies a Supreme 
One to whom we are obligated. As our internal 
sensations imply, the external world, so our inter- 
nal sense of moral obligation implies the external 
Deity to whom we are obligated. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 13 

In the latter case the evidence is the stronger; 
for our external senses may deceive us, whereas our 
internal self-consciousness is infallible. This is con- 
ceded by all philosophers, whatever their religious 
views. 

Sir William Hamilton declares: "That given in 
consciousness is undoubtedly true." Likewise 
John Stuart Mill: "Whatever is known by con- 
sciousness, is known beyond the possibility of 
question." The latter illustrates the truth stated 
by Dr. McCosh: "The greatest skeptics have al- 
lowed that we must trust consciousness" (Chris- 
tianity and Positivism, p. 194). 

The idea of God is unavoidable. Conscience in 
man implies God as truly as wings in the bird im- 
ply the open air. Dr. Fisher is right : "Out of man's 
perception of his own personal attributes arises 
the belief in a personal God . . . Man's per- 
sonality denotes God's personality. Together they 
stand or fall" (Grounds of Theistic and Christie 
Belief, p. 2). 

To long for God, is universal. It may be rudely 
expressed; but man everywhere exhibits it in some 
form of worship. President McCosh, of Prince- 
ton University, truly declared, "Everywhere in all 
countries, in ancient as in modern times, in civil- 
ized as well as in barbarous nations, we find him 
a worshipper at some altar, be it venerable, de- 
graded or bloodstained" (Divine Government). 

It is evident that conscience in man is not acci- 
dental — a result of training or of habit. Its germ, 
like that of memory and of imagination, is inborn 
in human nature; and, like memory and imagina- 
tion, it may be cultivated or perverted. The deep 
Dr. Frantz Delitzsch rightly declares that "Con- 
science is inseparable from the personal nature of 



14 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



man, and comes into being contemporaneously 
therewith" (Biblical Psychology, p. 168). 

Concurring in this view is Dr. Adolf Wuttke, 
University of Halle, and among psychologists eas- 
ily a foremost writer on ethics. He says, "Con- 
science is a revelation of the moral law as the 
Divine will ... In its germ it is a primitive 
and not a derived power . . . Conscience is es- 
sentially an integral part in man's God-likeness 
. . . The conscience, as differing from the en- 
lightening influence of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 9:1), 
is a power inherent in the essence of man per se, 
see Rom. 2 :14, 15, in proof : "When the Gentiles 
who have not the law do by nature the things of 
the law, these, not having the law, are a law unto 
themselves; in that they show the work of the law 
written in their hearts, their conscience bearing 
witness therewith, and their thoughts one with an- 
other accusing or else excusing them." R. V. 
(Christian Ethics, Vol. II., p. 100). 

In man's normal state, the idea of God and con- 
science are inseparable. The dimness of this idea 
denotes the depth of man's degradation. "Only the 
fool hath said in his heart, there is no God" (Psa. 
53:1). But even this denial proves the presence 
of the idea of God. 

Apart from the regenerating (John 3:5-7) and 
the transforming (Rom. 12:2) power of divine 
grace, man seems a creature of two contrary na- 
tures. To turn from himself to God or from God 
to himself, seems to violate the plan of his own be- 
ing. He actually is a contradiction of himself. 

Under increasing light, these two inward con- 
trary forces swell into a tumult — a tempest — of the 
soul. From this standpoint, Pliny the Elder (23-79 
A.D.) bemoans man, "A being full of contradic- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



15 



tions; he is the most wretched of creatures, since 
other creatures have no wants transcending the 
bounds of their natures. Man is full of desires and 
wants that can never be satisfied. His nature is a 
lie, uniting the greatest poverty with the greatest 
pride. Among these so great evils, the best thing 
God has bestowed upon man is the power to take his 
own life" (Neander's Church History). 

Contemporaneous with Pliny was that eminent 
Pharisee — now famous apostle of Christ — as was 
Pliny a famous naturalist. Paul experienced, like 
Pliny, this inward combat of contrary moral forces. 
His portrayal is pathetic : "That which I do, I allow 
not ; for what I would, that do I not ; but what I 
hate, that do I . . . For I know that in me, 
that is, in my flesh (earthly nature) dwelleth no 
good thing; for to will is present with me, but to 
do that which is good is not. For the good which 
I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not 
that I do ... O, wretched man that I am! 
who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" 
R. V. (Rom. 7:15-24). 

Paul and Pliny alike deplore man's wretched 
moral condition. But Paul facing despair shouts 
his triumph, "I thank God through Jesus Christ 
our Lord! . . ." The law of the Spirit of Life 
in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of 
sin and death ("warring against the law of my mind." 
Rom. 7:23). "We know that all things work to- 
gether for good to them that love God, to them who 
are the called according to his purpose . . ." 
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or fam- 
ine, or peril, or sword? Nay! in all these things 
we are more than conquerors through Him that 
loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death 



16 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, 
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, 
nor depth, nor any other creature [creation] shall 
be able to separate us from the love of God which 
is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:28, 35-39). 

Why Paul's ecstatic triumph in place of Pliny's 
deep despair? Conscience; nothing but conscience. 
Pliny fought his conscience; Paul crowned his. 
Pliny, rejecting the moral teachings of Plato, Aris- 
totle, and Cicero, violated the "law written in the 
heart." In consequence, he became a God-ignoring 
"agnostic" [Encyclop. Brittanica] commending suicide 
as the only hope against despair under the pangs of a 
guilty conscience. 

This "law written in the heart" at man's begin- 
ning holds over through the successive dispensa- 
tions of Divine grace. Before man's fall, it was a 
perfect image of God's character (Col. 3 :10) and an 
accurate expression of His will (Rom. 2:15). 

By the fall this image was greatly dimmed, but 
not defaced; for "from [since] the creation of the 
world the things that are made," clearly reveal the 
invisible things of God "even His eternal power 
and God-head; so that they [with no written law] 
are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20). 

This inward law, or moral faculty, surviving the 
fall is proof that it is, like memory and reason, es- 
sentially inherent. Dr. F. Delitzsch well says : "The 
heathen doing by nature what the revealed law 
claims, they bear witness to the fact that a knowl- 
edge of what is right before God, is established in 
the creatively ordained constitution of man" (Bibli- 
cal Psychology, p. 163). 

Although this inward law was greatly obscured 
by the fall, yet it becomes a potent factor in man's 
restoration through Christ. Without this inward 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



17 



law authorizing the written law with its institu- 
tions, restoration to God's character and will would 
not be possible. 

It has the sacredness and the sovereignty of the 
written law: "For as many as have sinned without 
law [written] shall also perish without law [writ- 
ten] ; and as many as have sinned in the law 
[written] shall be judged by the law [written]" 
Rom. 2 :12. 

In the light of this "law written in the heart," 
excuse for sin is out of the question ; hence the 
Scriptures require holiness under the different suc- 
cessive dispensations of the Divine government 
(Gen. 17:1,9-14; Lev. 19:2, 18, 34; Deut. 30:6; 1 Pet. 
1:14-16; I Thess. 5:23, 24). 

Not only man is destined to reflect the image of 
God, but nature as well in its order (Rom. 1 :19-20) : 
"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the 
firmament sheweth His handiwork. Day unto day 
uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth 
knowledge" etc. (Psa. 19:1.) But because of dull- 
ness of hearing and dimness of sight, incurred by 
the fall, the language of the physical universe is 
but little understood. Unrenewed man discerns but 
dimly the spiritual significance of creation. 

The spiritual significance of man and of subordi- 
nate creation is regained again through the vicarious 
death of Christ (Eph. 4:20-24; Col. 3:10; Heb. 
10:16; John 10:14,15; 17:21-23). Further on, this 
point will be made plainer. 

Only of late the moral faculty begins to receive 
the consideration it merits. With us, Christian 
ethics is yet in its infancy. Psychologists have dis- 
cussed the human mind as constituted of intellect, 
sensibilities, and will. His moral faculty — the most 
important thing in him — has received on part of 



18 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



psychologists, but little consideration. Only a few 
decades ago President W. F. Warren, Boston Uni- 
versity, declared. "The science of Christian ethics 
is with us almost unknown" (Wuttke's Chr. Eth., 
Preface VII). With this as with Christianity it- 
self, our views have been very, very superficial. But 
now moral scientists not only, but all real philoso- 
phers, are seeing man's moral nature, or moral fac- 
ulty, to be an original element in man's constitu- 
tion, and the basis of religion the most important 
thing concerning him. 

The moral faculty as inborn and as cultivated 
is receiving fuller consideration in late years on 
part of some leading German psychologists. 

As inborn it is more a feeling than an inference 
or even perception. It is a tendency. This ten- 
dency to the right, to feel after God (Acts 17:2T), 
is aptly expressed by the German ahnimg, as used 
by the foremost philosophers, Lotze and Ulrici, in 
discussing this subject. The term ahnung is from 
ahnen, "to have a presentiment of, to have a dim 
feeling or inkling after" (Whitney). 

This tendency, presentiment, or dim feeling, is the 
initial manifestation of the moral faculty designed to 
be developed into a clear God-consciousness in Chris- 
tianity. Any seemingly exceptionable cases can be 
referred to heredity or abnormal conditions of mind 
and body. Without a right conception of the moral 
faculty, man is not understood. 

Akin to the moral faculty — conscience, is the spirit- 
ual function — believing. In the scale of forces — 
mechanical, chemical, vital, intellectual and moral, 
the moral faculty is chief ; just so is believing among 
the human functions chief. Psychology affirms 
that, as the senses reveal the physical world 
just so faith reveals the spiritual and greater 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



19 



world which rules it, and can not be known 
by the senses or the mental activities them- 
selves : "The natural man receiveth not the things 
of the Spirit of God . . . Neither can he know 
them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 
Cor. 2:14). Therefore, "we have received the 
Spirit of God, that we might know the things that 
are freely given to us of God" (1 Cor. 2:12) ; "that 
we might receive the promised Spirit through 
faith" (Gal. 3:14), who reveals the Son and the 
Father (John 14:21-23); "That Christ may dwell 
in your hearts by faith . . . unto all the fullness 
of God" (Eph. 3:17-19). 

The believer is thus God-held (John 10:28, 29), 
mutually God-knowing (John 10:14,15), and mu- 
tually God-centred (John 17:21-23). And faith by 
virtue of its supreme rank over "all things" (Mark 
9:23) and its sovereign scope (Rom. 8:38, 39) is 
the efficient instrument actualizing Christ in ethics. 



20 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



CHAPTER III. 

Ethics and Religion. 

We have seen already that ethics and religion are 
very closely related. And by religion is not now 
meant the Christian religion, but religion in gen- 
eral, whether monotheistic or polytheistic. 

In general, "religion is the outward act, or form, 
by which men indicate their recognition of the ex- 
istence of a god or of gods having power over their 
destiny, to whom obedience, service, and honor are 
due ; a system of faith and worship ; a manifestation 
of piety, as ethical religions, monotheistic religions, 
etc." (Webster). 

Religion, like ethics, is grounded in man's moral 
nature. And in germ it is as clearly attested as any 
fact in his physical being. Professor Tyndal very 
justly declares "The facts of religious feeling are 
to me as certain as the facts of physics." 

While ethics concerns the outworking into active 
life, of the moral "law written in the heart" [Chap- 
ter II.], religion is the upward action of that law 
linking man to God, whereby is secured the devel- 
opment and the perpetuity of ethics. Religion and 
ethics of necessity correlate. When religion de- 
clines, ethics must decay. 

Ancient Greece is a strong example of this. 
Greece reached its maximum of power under Per- 
icles (469-429 B. C). Their religion for centuries 
had been theocentric. The supreme Deity and his 
subordinates ruled the seen and the unseen. 

Freemen [the population was mostly slave] re- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



21 



vered divine authority, and obeyed law in the light 
of present reward and of future retribution. 

Aeschylus (525-450 B. C.) very forcibly declares 
their constructive faith : "Death is no escape to the 
wicked from their sins or the consequences of them. 
Their crimes will follow them into another world. 
. . . In Hades also there is a tribunal which the 
wicked cannot escape, and a faithful record of their 
lives; and a just Judge will certainly bring them 
to judgment and punishment according to their 
deeds" (Lost Forever, p. 303). 

Likewise, a hundred years later, Plato (429-327 
B. C.) : "We ought always to believe those ancient 
and sacred words which declare to us that the soul 
is immortal, that judges are appointed; and that 
they pass the highest sentence of condemnation 
when the spirit leaves the body" (Lost Forever, 
p. 303). 

It was under this wholesome teaching that an- 
cient Greece rose to peerless primacy in culture, 
and eclipsed all ancient civilizations in glory. 

But a change came. "Philosophy passed its merid- 
ian in Plato and Aristole" (Encyclopaedia Brit- 
tanica). Through Aristotle religion began to be- 
come anthropo-centric, exalting the human in place 
of the divine. This appears in his teachings as set 
forth by Dr. Adolf Wuttke : "Freeborn man is by 
nature thoroughly good, hence has in his own rea- 
son the pure fountain of moral knowledge." 

"In Aristotle morality is entirely rooted in the 
soil of the subject [man] ; it appears less as the 
holy will of God to man, than as the absolutely nor- 
mal essence of the spiritual life as called forth by 
the rational human spirit itself." 

"In Plato the goal of moral striving lies in God- 
likeness and in the pleasure of God in man; in Aris- 



22 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



totle the subjective character comes decidedly into 
the foreground, namely, in the thought that this 
goal is the personal well-being of the moral sub- 
ject" (Christian Ethics, Vol. I., p. 94). 

Furthermore : "In Plato the highest and truest is, 
and remains, an object of the yon-side [next 
world] ; in Aristotle ... all that is true be- 
comes a quality of the this-side [present world], 
and that, too, not as brought into reality from with- 
out, but as wrought out from within (ditto Vol. L, 
pp. 94, 95). 

This rationalistic trend in Aristotle is affirmed 
also by the eminent cyclopaedists, McClintock and 
Strong: As to Plato, "The end of all his teaching 
is to show, in opposition to the Sophists, that the 
mind of man is not its own standard ; the tendency 
of Aristotle's teaching is to show that it is" (Biblic. 
Theolog. Eccl. Cyclop., Vol. I., p. 397). 

Divorcing ethics from religion divorces religion 
from God, degrading both ethics and religion in 
consequence; and human reason displacing divine 
authority becomes darkened, and dooms its subject 
to blinding skepticism and final destruction. Such 
was the course pursued by ancient Greece. The 
same is true of all other fallen nations of the past. 

Subordinating ethics to religion recognizing the 
sovereignty of Deity and the certainty of future 
retribution, is not an optional speculation of phil- 
osophy. It is a fundamental principle in the divine 
government and also in organized human society. 
This is well-stated by the eminent French phil- 
osopher, Baron de Montesquieu : "The idea of a 
place of future rewards necessarily implies a place 
of future punishments; and where the people hope 
for the one without a fear of the other, civil laws 
have no force." (Spirit of Law, p. 246.) 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



23 



This principle is so obvious that even infidels 
admit it. Lord Bolingbroke : "The doctrine of 
future rewards and punishments has a great ten- 
dency to enforce laws and restrain the vices of 
men." (Shedd. Hist. Christ. Doctrine, Vol. I., p. 
201.) Likewise Mr. Hume: "Disbelief in futurity 
loosens the ties of morality, and may be supposed 
to be pernicious to civil society/' (Bates, Cyclop, 
of Laws, p. 483.) 

This doctrine of divine government with its 
present providence and future retribution has 
enabled China and Japan to achieve their great 
prosperity and marvelous perpetuity for thousands 
of years. 

The Chinese Dragon denotes absolute divine jus- 
tice bringing certain punishment upon every trans- 
gression. This has preserved a keen sense of sin, 
and given high ideals and strong support to morals. 
The Chinese Emperor, Buo, three thousand years 
ago, punished drunkenness with the death-penalty. 

His system, modified, was introduced into Japan, 
and was operated nearly a thousand years. In 
fact, its influence is still manifest. Recently, under 
the administration of Japan's eminent Premier, 
Prince Ito, a soldier of Japan at Ping Hang, Korea, 
"ran amuck" — with bayonet chasing one through 
the American Methodist Mission. Prince Ito or- 
dered a penalty of two months at hard labor; and 
the colonel, major, captains and lieutenants of the 
regiment were disciplined by confinement from 
three to seven days. In China the criminal and his 
near-friends receive like punishment. Early Heb- 
rew civilization affords analogous cases — Korah, 
Numb. 16:23-34; Achan, Josh. 7:20-26. 

This high regard for Heaven's authority and a 
keen sense of sin must be regarded as the secret 



24 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



of the stability of China and of Japan during the 
past several thousand years. 

The ethics of China and of Japan merits further 
consideration. As to China, moral character strong 
enough to overcome the invasion of Gengis Khan 
in the Thirteenth Century and strong enough to 
survive the subjugation by the Manchu dynasty 
in the Seventeenth Century and yet retain their 
own language, government and religion, and, above 
all, to absorb and assimilate their conquerors, 
evinces force of character without a parallel. 

Such flexibility and power of endurance must be 
the product. of their religion; for "Religon is the 
most powerful social force known to man ; beyond 
anything else it has shaped, and is shaping, the 
world's history." (Dr. R. T. Ely, Social Law of 
Service, p. 20.) Religion is the summit of power 
in a man or a nation. 

The religion of China has been Theo-centric — 
God-centred, in start and aim. The emperor styled 
The Son of Heaven, has been sole high priest at the 
"altar of Heaven" in Peking — a worship wholly dis- 
tinct from the state-religion of Confucianism. 

Annually, at the time of the Winter solstice, the 
emperor, with fasting and contemplation, prostrates 
himself before Heaven, offering bullocks in sacrifice 
for himself and for the nation. 

In his daily living he observes this principle : 
"He that complies with Heaven is preserved ; he 
that rebels against Heaven is ruined." (Book of 
Changes.) This worship of the patriarchal age 
is the golden link uniting China to Heaven. Here- 
in is the secret and the source of China's transcend- 
ent perpetuity. 

Still further: A nation's literature indicates its 
moral rank. In this, China outranks all other na- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



25 



tions, Christian as well as Pagan. There is noth- 
ing to offend woman's finer sensibilities. Mr. 
Thomas Taylor Meadows, long a chief resident in 
China, makes this remarkable statement: "No peo- 
ple, whether of ancient or modern times, has pos- 
sessed a sacred literature so completely exempt as 
the Chinese from licentious descriptions and from 
every offensive expression. There is not a single 
sentence in the whole of their sacred books and 
their annotations that may not, when translated 
word for word, be read in any family in England" 
(Trumbull White, War in East, p. 140). 

Likewise, "in their painting and sculpture, scru- 
pulous care is taken to avoid all indecent and im- 
moral associations and suggestions" (White). 

What a contrast, this, with ancient Greece and 
Rome, and with modern Europe and America! ! 
Much of our stage, illustrated press, popular ro- 
mance, advertising methods, and billboard practice is 
openly immoral. 

Further still : China showed her superior rank in 
ethics when, being urged by the representatives 
of Christian England to legalize the opium trade 
and make it a source of revenue, the emperor re- 
plied that he would "not use as a means of rev- 
enue that which brought suffering and misery upon 
his people" (War in East, p. 139). 

This incident verifies the remarkable statement 
of Mr. Brinkley that "No other" nation has reached 
a moral and national elevation so high above con- 
temporaneous states" (Japan and China). 

That China will hold high rank as a world-power 
in the progress of the future, is assured by the fol- 
lowing: "Tai Hung Chi and Viceroy Tuan Fong, 
as Imperial Commissioners, came to the United 
States in 1906; and in his address February 1st, 



26 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



Tuan Fong declared : "We take pleasure in bearing 
testimony of to the progress of the Chinese people. 
They have borne the light of Western civilization 
into every nook and corner of the empire . . . The 
awakening of China now at hand may be traced in 
no small measure to the hand of the missionary. 
For this service you will find China not ungrateful 
. . . The spirit of modern enterprise seems to be 
in the very air you breathe. But this spirit, in order 
not to be injurious to society, must be guided by a 
strong sense of moral obligation" 

China's progressive viceroy, Chang Chi Tung, 
has placed the New Testament in the schools of his 
vast domain, saying that "while Confucian teach- 
ings were good in their place, there was a life and 
vigor in Western learning which must be sought 
in their sacred book." 

In like spirit the Chinese ambassador at Wash- 
ington remarked: "It is difficult to start China on 
the path of modern progress; but when she does 
move, it will be impossible to stop her." 

Akin to this, a statesman of China said in alluding 
to China's awakening: "It is difficult to set in mo- 
tion a great mass of solid matter; but, once in mo- 
tion, it will strike with tremendous impact." 

Such is the forecast of China as a world-power. 

Japan, a unique nation, this. It is the "only Ori- 
ental country that has a government of its own, in 
which there is absolute freedom in religious belief 
and practice, and in which there is no state religion 
and no state support" (Trumbull White). 

Notwithstanding this manifold toleration, Japan 
as a government is intensely religious ; and has 
been so from the beginning. Oral tradition traces 
both government and country to divine origin. 
Their traditional cosmogomy affirms chaos in the 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 27 



beginning, containing the germ of all things. 

"And from chaos was evolved a race of heavenly 
beings — the celestial Kami, of whom Izanagi, a 
male, and Izanami,^ a. female, were the last individu- 
als. By their union was produced the islands of 
Japan. Among their children were Amaterasu, the 
sun-goddess and her younger brother, Susanoo, af- 
terward appointed god of the sea . . . To her 
grandson, Ninigi-no-mikoto , was given absolute 
rule over the earth. And his great grandson, Jim- 
mn Tenno, was the first historic emperor of Japan. 
So, all the Mikados are directly descended from 
the sun-goddess, the principal Shinto divinity" 
(Trumbull White, War in the East, pp. 189-193). 

The Mikados being regarded as semi-divinities, 
only the nobility, nearest about the monarch have 
been permitted to see his sacred person. Only of 
late has this custom been changed. 

The ruling Mikado being considered heaven's true 
vice-gerent, and the very soil of his empire being 
regarded as the product of union in the Deity, has 
created in the Japanese an all-dominant religious 
sentiment and a burning patriotism rising into hom- 
age ready to burst into a paroxysm of national glor- 
ification, as was illustrated in the late Russo-Jap- 
anese war, when aged men begging a place in the 
Mikado's army, and, on refusal because of extreme 
age, at once committed suicide. 

This supreme religious sentiment was manifested 
by Admiral Togo. When the fleet of Rojesvensky 
was suddenly swept from the sea, the Mikado com- 
plimented Admiral Togo and his men. The admiral 
replied : that the unexpected success was due to 
the brilliant virtue of his majesty and to superin- 
tending providence, and "not to the action of any 
human being." 



28 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



Concerning the source of the man elous progress 
of Japan in the recent past, Prince I to, styled the 
"maker of modern Japan," has declared: "Japan's 
progress and development are due to the influence 
of missionaries exerted in the right direction when 
Japan was first studying the outer world" (Wom- 
an's Missionary Friend, December, 1904). 

The continuance of their rapid progress into the 
future is assured by the eternal principles of right- 
eousness now avowed by Japan's guiding states- 
men. 

Ex-Premier Count Okuma declares: "The efforts 
which Christians are making to supply to the coun- 
try a high standard of conduct are welcomed by all 
right-thinking people. As you read your Bible you 
may think it is antiquated, out of date. The words 
it contains may so appear; but the noble life which it 
holds up to admiration is something that will never 
be out of date, however much the world may pro- 
gress. Live and preach this life, and you will supply 
the nation just what it needs at the present junc- 
ture." 

In another address at the commencement exer- 
cises of the Aoyama College (Japan) the same emi- 
nent statesman said : "I believe that Christianity is 
the most advanced form of civilization" 

"There is a possibility, I think, that the centre of 
civilization will come round to the far east when 
this advanced religion [Christianity] has rightly 
been interwoven into the thought of the nation, and 
the nation has progressed with the times. 

"I believe that any nation that makes an anti- 
quated faith its state religion, will soon cease to 
exist. Therefore, I hope that you will endeavor to 
live up to the teachings of Christ." 

Likewise an ex-member of the Imperial Cabinet, 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



29 



Baron Maejima, boldly declares: "I firmly believe 
that we must have religion at the basis of our na- 
tional and personal welfare. No matter how large 
an army or navy we may have, unless we have 
righteousness at the foundation of our national ex- 
istence, we shall fall short of the highest success. 
I do not hesitate to say that we must rely upon 
religion for our highest welfare. And when I look 
about me to see what religion we may best rely 
upon, I am convinced that the religion of Christ is 
the most full of strength and promise for the 
nation." 

Securely anchored in Deity, Japan guided bv such 
illustrious statesmen, is rapidly and safely chang- 
ing from past Theo-centric rule into future Christo- 
centric rule. 

China and Japan have been sending imperial em- 
bassies accompanied by learned commissioners rep- 
resenting various departments of government, to 
the leading Christian powers in order to study and 
report on the methods and resources of Western 
civilization. They have been sending hundreds of 
chosen young men to Western universities for train- 
ing to become the future administrators of govern- 
ment. And their young women by thousands have 
been crowding home colleges for women. All this 
secures for the future their ever growing prosperity 
on the basis of national and individual righteous- 
ness declared by their guiding statesmen. 

Any forecast of the world's destiny during the 
Twentieth Century and what nations will be in the 
lead, must include Japan and China among the chief 
world-forces. 

Their marvelous perpetuity beyond three thous- 
and years is divine proof of their moral integrity 
(Exod. 20:12; Prov. 14:34; Acts 17:26, 27). In 



30 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



fact, Japan and China as governments have obeyed 
the unwritten moral law of the heart with such care 
as to achieve moral rank superior to most Christian 
nations that have always had God's written law. 

Recent transformations, political and religious, 
in the Orient denote the fulfilling of the words of 
America's great statesman, Hon. Wm. H. Seward, 
who declared in 1852, before railway, telegraph, or 
steamship served international commerce with Asia, 
viz., "The Pacific Ocean, its shores, islands, and 
vast region beyond, will be the chief centre of the 
world's events in the near hereafter." 

And now [1910] besides "various sailings of char- 
tered freight steamers of more or less regularity," 
the Bureau of Navigation gives seven regular steam- 
ship lines between Asia and the United States alone, 
with a trade in the calendar year 1909 amounting 
to $258,000,000. In 1907 it aggregated $300,000,000. 

And the trade of Asia with "all the other coun- 
tries of the world, including the United States," 
amounts annually to more than $4,000,000,000 (Bu- 
reau Statistics). It is said that a total of sixteen 
lines of steamships belt the Pacific Ocean. Mr. 
Seward's statement in 1852 seems actual prophecy. 

Abiding national supremacy depends on national 
righteousness, and national righteousness depends 
on true religion. "Blessed is the nation whose God 
is the Lord" (Psa. 33 :12). 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



31 



CHAPTER IV. 

Ethics and Christianity. 

We have seen that religion controls and conserves 
ethics. Christian ethics regulates human conduct ac- 
cording to Christianity, or rather usually according 
to the customary conception of Christianity. For, 
be it noted that historic Christianity is not identical 
with New Testament Christianity. Consequently 
the ethics of one so-called Christian people varies 
from the ethics of another so-called Christian peo- 
ple. And the ethics of one such people at a given 
time differs from the ethics of the same people at 
another time. Instance : All the so-called Christian 
nations now abhor human slavery, whereas they 
once practiced it as a natural condition of organized 
society. 

This sentiment seems to have been imbibed along 
with some other principles of Greek philosophy. In 
the time of Plato and Aristotle slavery was deemed 
essential in the foundation of a free state. Only 
the Hellene was regarded a truly moral personality. 
All other peoples were barbarians. There was then 
no such conception as universal humanity. 

Foreigner and national foe were regarded as iden- 
tical ; and ancient Rome expressed both by the same 
word, hostis. Even to this day, this is the perplex- 
ing problem of international ethics, as is indicated 
by the tremendous armaments of the nations. 

The progress of so-called Christian ethics toward 
the New Testament standard has been very slow. 
Past ideals in the ethics of historic Christianity ap- 



32 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



pear in sharp contrast with even present best stand- 
ards of morality. 

Under Henry VIII. (1539 A.D.) the British Par- 
liament passed an "Act for Abolishing Diversity of 
Opinions," by which persons of faith and practice 
at variance with the royal manifesto were con- 
demned to suffer the pains of death as felons, or be 
imprisoned during the King's pleasure" (Daniel's 
Hist. Methodism, p. 49). 

During the brief reign of his daughter, Mary 
["Bloody Mary"], two hundred and seventy-seven 
persons were burned alive for their faith [Protest- 
ant]. Among them were one archbishop, three 
bishops, twenty-one clergymen, eighty-four trades- 
men, one hundred husbandmen, fifty-five women, 
and four children ! Among her victims were Rid- 
ley, Latimer and Cranmer (Encyclo. Brittanica). 

"In England under Richard II. a law was made 
that no laborer should move from one place to an- 
other, which law was reaffirmed under George II. 
and George III. And if a laborer refused to work 
for wages fixed by law he was whipped through 
town till his back was covered with blood. A sec- 
ond offense they punished by cutting off his right 
ear ; and, for a third offense, they put him to death. 
In 1530 an unskilled laborer was paid one penny 
a day of fourteen hours of hard work" (Winterbot- 
tom, Cent. Chr. Advoc, August 29, 1900). 

As relics of that age of cruelty, may be seen in 
the Tower of London five hundred and eighty in- 
struments of torture to compel agreement with the 
accepted standard of faith. 

On the continent a similar state of savage morals 
( ?) existed. "The traveler sees the Witch Towers, 
the torture chambers, and the collection of instru- 
ments of torture in various towns, notably Nurem- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



33 



berg, Ratisbon, Munich, and The Hague . . . The 
executioner's tariffs as late as the middle of the 
Eighteenth Century — that issued by the Archbishop 
Elector of Cologne in 1757 . . . Examples from 
this tariff are: (1) For tearing asunder with four 
horses, 5 thalers, 26 ull; (2) for quartering, 4 thalers; 
(5) for beheading and burning, 5 thalers, 26 ull; (7) 
for strangling and burning, 4 thalers; (9) for burning 
alive, 4 thalers; (11) for breaking a man alive on 
the wheel, 4 thalers, etc., etc." (Andrew D. White, 
May Atlantic). 

"Three hundred years ago Russia hung political 
criminals on hooks, blinded them and struck off 
their legs. The year 1670 dates the "beginning to 
be left off," the custom to tie up wives by the hair 
and flogging them" (Dr. Collins, Phys. to Czar). 
"Not many years ago an annual sale of wives was 
held on Whit Sunday, after the plan followed by the 
Assyrians" (Dr. J. H. Kellog, Plain Facts, p. 138). 

But for the incontrovertible testimony, such atro- 
cities committed in honor of Christianity (?) would 
be incredible. Such crude conceptions of Christian- 
ity show the depth of human depravity. 

Colonial legislation in America can furnish simi- 
lar instances of savage ethics (?). Lord Baltimore's 
"Toleration Act" applied only to Trinitarians. Dis- 
belief in the Trinity was adjudged a crime punish- 
able with death. Hence Jews did not immigrate 
into Maryland" (Dutch and Quaker Colonies in 
America, Vol. II., p. 336). 

"In the Virginia Colony absence from church was 
a crime — on third offense — punished with death." 

Here the death-penalty was inflicted without the 
cruel tortures practiced in Europe. 

In the Plymouth Colony "conversing with the 
divel by way of witchcraft or the like, shall be a 



34 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



capitall offense lyable to death." Likewise in Con- 
necticut, "If any person be a witch, he or she shall 
be put to death." By the New Haven "blue laws," 
"If any person turns Quaker he shall be banished, 
and not suffered to return but upon pain of death." 
The anti-Quaker law of Virginia was the same 
(Blue Laws). 

As illustrative of the crude notions of religion 
taken for Christianity in those days, in sharp con- 
trast with the Puritans farther north, "In Virginia 
a royal governor could say, as late as 1671, 'I thank 
God there are no free schools nor printing : and I 
hope we shall not have them these hundred years ; 
for learning has brought disobedience and misery 
and sects into the world; and printing has divulged 
them and libels against the best government. God 
keep us from both' " (Goldwin Smith, Lectures of 
Study of History, p. 195). 

The Christianity of the Eighteenth Century, al- 
though freed from the self-centred, savage legalism 
of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, yet was 
no actual advance in Scriptural holiness. It was 
less cruel and less destructive of the free ethical 
spirit, but not more constructive of positive godli- 
ness. It offered an inviting field to English deism 
and French infidelity. 

Bishop Butler says, "The church was only a sub- 
ject of mirth and ridicule." The Bishop of Litch- 
field declared : "Sin in general has grown so hard- 
ened and rampant as that immoralities are defended, 
yea, justified on principle. Every kind of sin has 
found a writer to vindicate and teach it, and a book- 
seller to spread it." 

Baron de Montesquieu declared: "Not more than 
four or five members of the House of Commons 
were regular attendants at church." The Rev. Au- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



35 



gustus M. Toplady, himself a minister of the Es- 
tablished Church, said: "At that period [1728 A.D.] 
a converted minister in the establishment was as 
great a wonder as a comet" (Daniel's Hist. Metho- 
dism, pp. 53.55). 

Similar conditions existed in America. Joseph 
Cook declares that "One hundred and fifty years ago 
the new birth in New England was a novelty." Dr. 
Lyman Beecher attended an ordination [about 1816 
A.D.] at which forty dollars' worth of intoxicating 
liquors was drunk by New England ministers" 
(Cook's Lecture, December, 1878). 

The only successful barrier against the incoming 
flood of iniquity was the Wesleyan Reformation 
which "prevented England from relapsing into bar- 
barism," and the "great awakening" under President 
Edwards, which, with transplanted Methodism con- 
quered English deism and French infidelity, making 
the United States a possibility. 

Even at the present time [1910] there still rests 
upon ethics the incubus of past ignorance, super- 
stition, and unbelief, not to say crime. 

Not to mention extremes in high living and ex- 
travagances in dress and jewelry [$600,000,000] — 
both under ban of Scripture (1 Tim. 2 :9 ; 1 Pet. 
3 :3, 4) — and the harmful habit of chewing gum 
[$24,000,000], let us note the more destructive habit 
of using tobacco [$800,000,000]. 

Many clergymen and very many laymen in the 
church are slaves to the filthy habit; and many of 
the traders in tobacco are members of the church. 
From a financial point of view the aspect is griev- 
ous : Tobacco, $800,000,000 ; chewing gum, $24,000,- 
000; jewelry, $600,000,000, to which may be added 
theatrical amusements, $400,000,000, aggregating 
$1,824,000,000. All this for personal gratification, 



36 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



while only $6,000,000 is given to evangelize foreign 
non-Christian peoples ! That is, about $303 for need- 
less self-gratification, and $1 for foreign missions ! 

How such self-indulgence can be reconciled with 
Christian ethics, in the face of Christ's command to 
"gospelize all nations" (Matt. 28:19), is incompre- 
hensible. 

But the darkest blot on American morals is the 
atrocious "liquor traffic" with its flagitious offspring, 
the "white slave trade," housing 300,000 "fallen 
women," and decoying 60,000 more girls every year, 
or 5,000 every month, 170 every day, that is, one 
young life blasted every eight minutes ! This busi- 
ness is patronized by over 2,000,000 "fallen men," 
or one boy ruined every, two minutes" (The Light, 
January, 1910, p. 95). 

The close connection between the traffic in liquor 
and the traffic in women is conceded. A manager 
of the latter said to the mayor of an eastern city: 
"Hundreds of men come into our parlors "just to 
see the town," brought there by our procurors who 
are paid to get these men to 'just come into the 
parlor.' They are men from smaller towns, with 
good families, and they won't disgrace wife and 
daughter, and unless we can get them under the influ- 
ence of liquor right then and there, they won't pat- 
ronize our houses ; and we can't run our business 
without drink" (Mrs. C. Edholm). 

Furthermore : "The Wholesale and Retailers' Re- 
view," a popular liquor magazine, admits : "Any 
man who knows the saloon well can honestly say 
that the most of them have forfeited their right to 
live. The model saloon exists chiefly in the minds 
of editors of liquor journals, in the imaginations of 
a certain type of ministers, and in the mythical stor- 
ies sometimes rehearsed at saloon men's camp fires. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



37 



Unfortunately the average tippling-house is a place 
of ill-fame ; a place of shame and debauchery. With 
comparatively few exceptions, our saloons are 
houses of drunken men, profanity and obscenity of 
the vilest type" (Pentecostal Herald, April 14, 
1909). 

The enormity of these dire evils is further seen 
in the yearly death of 110,000 drunkards and 60,000 
"fallen women," not to mention unspeakable family 
sorrows and sufferings. 

Now the melancholy reflection is that this appal- 
ling destruction of 170,000 human lives annually, the 
limitless domestic suffering and family dissolutions 
on the rapid increase, and the demoralizing of the 
public conscience threatening the welfare of the 
state, would be utterly impossible but for the social 
and political support given by the so-called Chris- 
tian (?) communities! Only by their combined 
votes is the liquor power kept in office, ostensibly 
for the sake of national and municipal revenue. But 
it discloses a deplorable condition of civic and per- 
sonal morals. 

Such is the general corruption, both political and 
religious, that the only hope for sound ethics is a 
new Christianity. There seems occasion for Dr. 
Strong's statement: "Only one-half of Christ's gos- 
pel has been preached; and Christianity has been 
only one-half accepted, only one-half applied" (Next 
Great Awakening, p. 187), and this is as true of in- 
ward experience as of outward conduct. The "new 
Christianity" required is that of Christ in the gospels 
and the epistles. 

The finer distinctions of Scriptural Christian eth- 
ics are so manifestly disregarded at the present time, 
that the very fact of Divine authority and Divine 
government is becoming an open question. 



38 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



A very prominent leader in philosophical and re- 
ligious thought boldly avows: "We are fast dis- 
placing the entire conception of God as governor 
by the conception of God as father. And the con- 
ception of the Divine government is giving place 
to the conception of the Divine family." 

That this teaching dulls the conscience and con- 
dones sin is clear in what he further says : "And 
sin itself as we find it among men is largely the 
willfulness of freedom which has not learned self- 
control, rather than any deliberate choice of evil!" 
(Studies in Christian Life, Zion's Herald, 1909). 

The greatest British statesman of his time, the 
Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone, very truly declared: "The 
greatest spiritual danger at the close of the Nine- 
teenth Century is the decay of the sense of sinful- 
ness." And this evidently denotes a decline of faith 
in the personal God and His righteous government 
as revealed in the Sacred Scriptures. 

Likewise the British ambassador at Washington 
(1910 A.D.), the Hon. James Bryce, at the Student 
Volunteer Convention in Rochester, N. Y., Decem- 
ber 29, 1909, declared: "The greatest obstacle to the 
spread of the Gospel abroad is its imperfect power 
at home. There is a great difference between the 
New Testament standard and the efforts we make to 
reach it." 

For deeper conviction of the spiritual lack in pres- 
ent ethical standards, further testimony is given. 
The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in its Bishop's address [1896], declared: "It 
cannot be too deeply impressed upon our minds that 
in all ages the church has fallen far short of the 
divine ideal, both in purity and power. God's 
thought and plans for His Church are as high above 
ours as the heavens are above the earth. . . . 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



39 



When we look at His ideal, promise, provision, and 
power, at the humiliation and exaltation of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, at the unwordable groanings of 
the Holy Spirit, it seems as if provision and per- 
formance were scarcely at all related." 

And the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at 
its recent session [May, 1910] declared: "Great as 
have been the successes of the Church, we lament 
that they have not been greater. We have not put 
forth half our strength." A sad confession, this, 
in the face of God's requirement, "Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all 
thy soul, and with all thy mind" (Matt. 22 :37). 

These two leading bodies of Methodism numbering a 
membership of about 5,000,000 with about 18,000,- 
000 of adherents, by their humiliating confessions 
call in question their fitness for further moral lead- 
ership. 

And other denominations, for most part, give no 
better showing, — a legitimate inference from the 
fact that "leading Protestant thinkers declare that, 
'Methodism holds the future ; if Methodism fails, 
America fails.' " To the same effect is the state- 
ment of a foremost prelate of Roman Catholicism, 
the late Bishop Spaulding: "The only sect that Ro- 
man Catholicism fears is organized Methodism . . 
. I greatly fear the influence of Methodism upon 
the second and third generations of imported Rom- 
anists" (Gen. Conf., Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, May, 1910). 

If these two Methodisms, constituting so superior 
religions influence as is affirmed by Protestant and 
by Papal authorities, fall so far short of the general 
conception of Christian ethics, what must be their 
moral state in the light of the New Testament stan- 
dard? 



40 



'CHRIST IN ETHICS 



And the vast multitudes that crowd the places of 
Sunday amusement, to the neglect of the churches, 
put beyond question that the church has lost its 
moral leadership. And its moral degradation is 
seen in its fruitless efforts to regain that forfeited 
leadership, such as popular lectures, moving pic- 
ture shows, orchestra, brass band, boys' brigade, 
the institutional church with its gymnasium, bil- 
liards and bowling alley, the baseball club, the 
"serving lunches to awaken interest in the weekly 
prayer meeting," the "Sunday evening lunch to in- 
duce members of the congregation to attend 
church," and lowest of all, the "prize-fight by two 
deacons !" 

A vicar, to gain the masses, "gave twelve con- 
certs, twenty dances, six lectures, three Christmas 
trees, a few sociables with theatricals and several 
outings" ; and having gained "one convert," he "con- 
cluded to try the simplicity of the gospel !" 

Were the foregoing schemes not basely wicked, 
they would constitute a ludicrous farce. 

Is there not much truth in the statement of a 
prominent secular journal: "The time has come 
when the churchman must cater to the world in- 
stead of controlling it . . . The pulpit no longer 
is the educator, not even the censor; but has be- 
come the caterer to a very large degree — and in 
this sense the policy of churches has become a mat- 
ter of discussion in which public opinion decides." 

But why should the church quail before the 
world? In what is her lack of power to withstand 
the world-forces which make for evil? It is be- 
cause Divine leadership is absent. The Divine 
equipment is wanting. 

The question is one of moral might. Innocence 
is not enough. "Innocence may be founded on ig- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



41 



norance; but virtue is evermore based upon know- 
ledge. In the presence of temptation one is a rope 
of sand and the other is a keen Damascus blade" 
(Frances E. Willard). The Divine command is, 
"Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His 
might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye 
may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, 
etc." (Eph. 6:10-18). Nothing less will do. 

Fragmentary good is a failure. The gospel of 
Christ is intolerant of fragments from start to fin- 
ish. First, in doing away sin and self — "Whosoever 
he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, 
he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33). "If any 
man will come after me, let him deny himself, and 
take up his cross, and follow me" (Matt. 16:24). 
"Deny" — set at naught, disown himself — his own 
personality, even unto death ; "take up his cross" — 
going to crucifixion; "renounce himself fully, in all 
respects perseveringly" (Adam Clarke). Genuine 
repentance involves giving up one's natural life for 
Christ, fully and perseveringly in all respects. "The 
spirit of Christ is the spirit of martyrdom" (D. D. 
Whedon). 

Secondly, in constructive righteousness frag- 
ments are disallowed. "Be ye therefore perfect, 
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" 
(Matt. 5 :48) ; "This is my commandment that ye 
love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12) ; 
"Hereby know we love, because He laid down His 
life for us ; and we ought to lay down our lives for 
the brethren" R. V. (1 John 3 :16) ; "Like as He who 
called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in 
all manner of living" R. V. (1 Pet. 1:15) ; "That 
ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleas- 
ing," etc. (Col. 1 :10) ; "That ye would walk worthy 



42 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



of God who hath called you unto His kingdom and 
glory" (1 Thess. 2:12). 

Completeness in constructive righteousness is so 
transcendent in importance that different orders 
were established in the church to secure it : "And he 
gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and 
some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. 
For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the 
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. 
Till we all come into the unity of the faith, and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect 
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness 
of Christ" (Eph. 4:11-13). This only avoids the 
sole alternative of being "children tossed to and fro, 
and carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Ver. 

Not only was the church organized to bring be- 
lievers unto perfection ; but the Sacred Scriptures 
were given also for this purpose; "for teaching, for 
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
ness, that the man of God may be complete, fur- 
nished completely unto every good work" (2 Tim. 
3:16, 17). 

Inspired prayers specify this perfection. Paul 
prayed that the church at Ephesus might be 
strengthened according to the riches of God's glory, 
that Christ might dwell in their hearts imparting 
all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:16-19). And Christ 
prayed that all who believe on Him should be per- 
fected into one with Himself and the Father even 
as He and the Father are one" (John 17:21-23). 

This perfection was the special aim in the death 
of Christ (Rom. 8:3, 4; 1 John 1:7); "He is able 
to save them to the uttermost that come unto God 
by Him" (Heb. 7:25). On this text the eminent 
Lutheran exegete, Dr. F. Delitzsch, comments, 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



43 



"Christ is able to save perfectly and to the very- 
end, but without necessarily any reference to time. 
He is able to save in every way, in all respects, and 
unto the uttermost, so that every want and every 
need in all its breadth and depth is utterly done 
away. This salvation is vouchsafed to those who 
through Him approach to God." 

There is provision in the Atonement of Christ 
for the complete elimination of all fragmentariness 
of every sort. Men falter at God's promises, and 
deny the possibility of this high standard of eth- 
ics, because they do not see God's provision for its 
actual realization. Neither do they see God's agency 
in effecting it. Men need to be "corrected and in- 
structed" (2 Tim. 3:16) by this Scripture: "God . 
. . through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 
make you perfect in every good work to do His 
will, working in you that which is well pleasing in 
his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory 
forever and ever, Amen!" (Heb. 13:20, 21). We 
unite with God, the efficient cause. 

How true is the statement of that eminent Luth- 
eran Ethicist, Dr. A. Wuttke : "The moral goal of 
every human being is moral perfection, and all that 
conducts thereto is for every such being an absolute 
duty" (Christian Ethics, Vol. II., p. 112). 

Conventional ethics is self-centred, and obtains 
but little aid from the fragmentary, superficial 
Christianity of the times. Hence it is said, "The 
greatest happiness of all is the noblest aim of in- 
dividual action, provided that happiness is compat- 
ible with the noblest and best being of the indi- 
vidual." 

Contrary to this, Christian ethics is Christo-cen- 
tric: "All things were created by Him and for Him, 
* and He is before all things, and by Him all things 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



consist" (Col. 1:16, 17). "Whatsover ye do in word 
or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giv- 
ing thanks to God and the Father by Him" 
(Col. 3:17). 

As a basal principle and moral motive in Chris- 
tian ethics, mutual good-will, or the public good, 
has its place ; but it is not chief. Chief and foremost 
is God in His righteous government. This is the 
fundamental, forming principle and the final moral 
motive: "Like as He who called you is holy, be ye 
yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because 
it is written, ye shall be holy, for I am holy" R. V. 
(1 Peter 1:15, 16). 

First in constructive order and foremost in im- 
portance is all controlling love to God as Supreme. 
Love to neighbor is resultant, and second in order, 
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 
This is the first and great commandment. And the 
'second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself. On these two commandments hang 
all the law and the prophets" (Matt. 22:37-40). 

In the ethics of Scriptural Christianity there is no 
alien — no foreigner ; all persons are blood-kin : "God 
hath made of one blood all nations of men," etc. 
(Acts 17:26). 

Every human being is "neighbor," and is to love 
and be loved, not with one's natural love of his spe- 
cies, but with the "love of God shed abroad in our 
hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" 
(Rom. 5:5). 

This love divinely imparted momentarily is the 
progressively constructive principle in the Messia- 
nic kingdom: "Seek -first the kingdom of God and 
His righteousness" (Matt. 6:33). Dr. August W. 
Meyer rightly declares : "God calls the reader to 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



45 



participate in His kingdom [i. e., the Messianic] 
and in His [God's] glory; for Christians are des- 
tined to enter upon the joint possession of the 
doxa which God Himself has." 

In proof of this is the Christian's call : "God hath 
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through 
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth ; 
whereunto He called you by our gospel [even] to 
the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" 
(2 Thess. 2:13, 14). In real Christian ethics, first, 
fundamental, and foremost continually in order and 
aim, is God in "His kingdom and glory" (1 Thess. 
2:12), the gospel dispensation (Luke 9:2, 6, 27; 
11:20; Col. 1:13). 

The growing dislike to God and His government 
comes of a wrong conception of His character and 
righteous rule. All who "are the children of God 
by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26) love God at 
once as loving Father and righteous Ruler. The 
right "conception of God as governor" is consistent 
with the right "conception of God as Father." 

Whenever the "Divine family" is held to "dis- 
place the Divine government," the human will has 
already displaced the Divine authority of the Scrip- 
tures, as "our traditional categories of the saved and 
unsaved cannot be applied in any hard-and-fast 
manner . . . Men are not so much saved as they 
are becoming saved ; and men are not so much lost 
as they are becoming lost . . . And sin itself, as 
we find it among men, is largely the willfulness of 
freedom which has not learned self-control, rather 
than any deliberate choice of evil." 

This openly contradicts the explicit statement of 
Christ that men "are lost" (Matt. 10:6; 15:24; Luke 
19:10), and sets at naught the Scriptures which de- 
clare men "are saved" (Luke 7:50; 1 Cor. 1:18; 



46 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



Titus 3:5), and boldly denies God's declaration that 
the "heart of the sons of men is fully set in them 
to do evil" (Eccl. 8:11). < 

How any moral individual — not to say Christian 
— can read in the "dailies" constant reports of de- 
liberately planned robberies, murders, and the atro- 
cious deeds of lust in the "white slave trade," and 
yet call all this willful wickedness "largely the will- 
fulness of freedom which has not learned self-con- 
trol rather than any deliberate choice of evil," is 
simply astounding! 

But one may become capable of this by rejecting 
the Divine government with its three hundred and 
sixty-five prohibitions and two hundred and for- 
ty-eight precepts of the Mosiac law — six hundred 
and thirteen in all, and by ignoring hundreds more 
in the New Testament, thereby forcibly verifying 
the words of President McCosh that "It is possible 
for the conscience to become a deranging instead of 
a regulating power" (Divine Government, p. 395). 

Among ten thousand suicides annually, the fol- 
lowing exhibits a deranged conscience: "Because 

of the death, three weeks ago, of , to whom she 

was engaged, , aged twenty-five, committed 

suicide at Niagara Falls yesterday . . . On the 
bank was found a handbag and in it this note — 
'Mama and papa, may you both forgive me for 
bringing this awful disgrace upon you . . . Also 
may our Heavenly Father forgive all my sins. But 
I have been very good, thank God !' " 

Many now through racing after wealth and 
worldly display, etc., are repeating the religious 
folly of the great evolutionist, Charles Darwin : "In 
my younger days I was deeply religious; but I 
made my mind a machine for grinding out general 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



47 



laws in the physical world ; and my spiritual nature 
atrophied," i. e., wasted away. 

Perverting and wasting away of conscience may 
justly be regarded as on the increase. Facing the fact 
that "the great majority of church members know 
nothing about the new birth (Prof. Henry Drum- 
mond) and "even from the evangelical churches the 
sense of sin in large measure departs" (J. M. Buck- 
ley), and the present general silence of the pulpit 
and religious press respecting God's law and future 
retribution, one can see the need of the reprimand 
from Justice Brewer of The United States Supreme 
Court: "You ministers are making a fatal mistake 
in not holding forth before men, as prominently as 
the previous generation did, the retributive justice 
of God. You have fallen into a sensational habit 
of rhapsodizing over the love of God, and you are 
not appealing to that fear of future punishment 
which your Lord and Master made such a promi- 
nent part of His preaching. And we are seeing the 
effects of it in the widespread demoralization of 
private virtue and the corruption of public con- 
science throughout the land." 

Judge Brewer's more recent admonition is time- 
ly : "The greatest hope for the future of the Ameri- 
can people is the development of its conscience" 
(Cleveland Press, June 6, 1907). 

Emphasizing the fact of the Divine personal in- 
dwelling as the basis of sound ethics cannot be 
overestimated. Only God indwelling and trans- 
forming and forthcoming (Heb. 13 :21) can match 
the true ethical standard. "The personal God is the 
basis of the moral in that He as holy will is the 
eternal foundation and embodiment of the moral 
idea" (Wuttke, Ethics, Vol. II., p. 82). 

The civic welfare and national perpetuity depend 



48 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



on this. General good-will, or the public welfare, 
is a proper, powerful motive; but the chief, basal, 
forming force in Christian ethics is the personal 
God manifest in righteous government. 

Whenever ethics recedes from God and His holy 
law, moral decay sets in, accomplishing ultimate 
ruin. A moral axiom is stated by the British his- 
torian, Mr. Froude : "A society without God in the 
heart of it is not permitted to exist." 

Christianity heightens the standard of morals in- 
stead of lowering it in order to make it easier. It 
makes it easier by virtue of greatly increased ability 
to meet the higher standard. 

The atonement by the death of Christ (Rom. 
5 :10 ; Heb. 2 :9) expends its force upon man, re- 
newing, empowering, and adjusting him to the Di- 
vine nature and government: "God was in Christ 
reconciling the world unto Himself" (2 Cor. 5 :19) ; 
"That he might be just and the justifier of him 
which believeth in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26). By virtue 
of the atonement, pardon of sins is an act of Di- 
vine justice as well as of mercy. These Scriptures 
prove this. 

The atonement not only frees man from the guilt 
and acts of sin and from the polluting sin-tendency 
in transmitted human nature, but it also empowers 
him to obey God, thus putting the believer upon the 
plane of God's moral law: "God sending forth His 
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin 
[sin-offering] condemned sin in the flesh, that the 
righteousness of the law [moral] might be fulfilled 
in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the 
Spirit" (Rom. 8:3, 4). 

In this way man is restored again to the harmony 
of the universe, which is placed before man as the 
motive to repentance unto salvation : "Repent ye, 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



49 



for the kingdom of the heavens [Gr.] is at hand" 
(Matt. 3:2, 4:17). So Christ's order to the Twelve 
(Matt. 10:7) and to the Seventy (Luke 10:11) was 
to put before men the crowning motive to obedi- 
ence, that "the kingdom of the heavens [Gr.] is at 
hand" [Greek aorist — instantly approached]. 

The harmony of the universe is at once the model 
and the motive for human harmony. Both are based 
on the atonement : "Having made peace through the 
blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things 
unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be 
things in earth or things in the heavens" [Gr.] (Col. 
1:20). Truly "He is before all things, and by Him 
all things consist" (Col. 1:17). On this text John 
Wesley notes : "He is the cement as well as support 
of the universe." 

The universe, like the gospel, is Christo-centric. 
All things physical and spiritual, visible and invis- 
ible, are destined to move in harmony under con- 
trol of a common centre, Christ Jesus the Lord. 

This harmonious Christo-centric government of 
the universe given in the New Testament won 
from skepticism the Swiss historian, Johann Von 
Mueller. He confesses: "The gospel is the perfec- 
tion of all philosophy, the key to all the seeming 
contradictions of the physical and moral world. Since 
I have known the Savior everything is clear." 

Sin is not a part of the creative cosmic order. It 
is an intrusion, disturbing the harmony of the uni- 
verse. It makes the individual abnormal. It takes 
him out of his normal element — God; and, like a 
fish out of water, he t must perish. 

Viewing the atonement in its relation to the 
Divine government affords to man the only rational 
theodicy, and the only satisfaction of his needs for 



50 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



time and eternity. Here only is found the true 
basis of sound ethics. 

Christ came to do away sin, and restore man to 
normal relations with God. His forerunner cried, 
"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the 
sin of the world" (John 1 :29) ; "He was manifested 
to take away our sins" (1 John 3:5). 

Sin in its two-fold ; nature — dwelling in human 
nature (Rom. 7 :20) and outgoing in human action 
(1 John 3 :8) is completely eliminated. "Our old 
man was crucified with Him [Christ], that the 
body of sin might be done away" R. V. (Rom. 6 :6). 
"Being justified freely by His grace through the 
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath 
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His 
blood, to declare His righteousness for the remis- 
sion of sins that are past, through the forbearance 
of God" (Rom. 3:24, 25). 

The atonement that does away the inward tend- 
ency and the outward act of sin, is likewise a bar 
against all future sin : "Now being made free from 
sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit 
unto holiness, and the end everlasting life" (Rom. 
6 :22) ; "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit 
sin, for his seed (1. Pet. 1:22, 23) remaineth in him, 
and he cannot sin, because he is born of God" (1 
John 3:9). 

Thus the atonement personally operative creates 
and constitutes Christian ethics. 

Clearly shown in the foregoing Scriptures, God is 
the standard for character (Matt. 5 :48 ; 1 Pet. 1 :15, 
16) ; and for conduct Christ is the pattern (Phil. 
2:5; Col. 1:10; 1 Pet. 2:21; 1 John 2:6). Any- 
thing lower than this may be conventional ethics; 
but only this is Christian ethics. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 51 



CHAPTER V. 
Ethics and Christ. 

The soul of Christian ethics is Christ in His Di- 
vine personality. That Christ is the example for 
Christian living, is generally allowed; yet many 
things are done by so-called Christians which they 
themselves would think quite out of place in Christ. 

To be made in character as good as Christ, and 
in conduct as consistent as Christ, is deemed im- 
possible. So that Christ, being our example is ac- 
cepted only in a loose, accommodating sense. 

The sinner cannot come into sameness of charac- 
ter with Christ by imitation or by moral training. 
He is spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1); and you cannot 
train a dead person. God must first make him 
alive : "God . . . when we were dead by our 
trespasses, quickened [made alive, Gr.] us together 
with Christ" (Eph. 2:5). 

Any good work in order to salvation is out of 
the question : "Not of works, lest any man should 
boast ; for we are His workmanship created in 
Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath 
foreordained that we should walk in them" (Eph. 
2:9, 10). "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he 
is a new creation [Gr.] ; old things are passed away; 
behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. 5:17). 

An entirely new order is established. Out of 
fallen human nature, a new humanity is created. 

The eminent exegete, Dr. F. Godet, rightly de- 
clares on John 17 :19 : "Jesus created a holy human- 
ity in His person, and the Spirit has the task and 
power to reproduce in us this new humanity." Like- 



52 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



wise the great French divine, Edmond de Pres- 
sense, has truly said, "Christ did more than simply 
assume human nature. He became the head of a 
new humanity, and its representative before God" 
(Early Years of Christianity, p. 273). 

So the great German theologian, Dr. Dorner, 
speaks of Christian faith "which establishes a new 
mode of existence and consciousness, namely, that 
of the children of God (Glaubenslehre, I., p. 128). 

By the fall in Eden no one now is under disad- 
vantage. But, in spite of the fall, in Christ the 
race is promoted to great advantage ; for "where 
sin abounded, grace did much more abound" (Rom. 
5:20). 

The Methodist theologian for a hundred years, 
Richard Watson, very truly declares : "It is impos- 
sible to impeach the equit}^ of the Divine procedure, 
since no man suffers any loss or injury ultimately 
by the sin of Adam, but by his own wilful obsti- 
nacy, — the abounding grace of Christ having placed 
before all men, upon their believing, not merely 
compensation for the loss and injury sustained by 
Adam, but infinitely higher blessing both in kind 
and degree than were forfeited in him" (Theolog. 
Institute, Vol. II., p. 57). 

But contrary to this, the general conviction is 
that we all do suffer loss, that we are under great 
disadvantage by reason of Adam sinning and trans- 
mitting to posterity sinful nature [Rom. 7:20; 8:3] 
and infirmities of mind and body. 

Such is human experience beyond question. But 
one thing else is true beyond question ; namely, 
Christ is not accepted to dwell in us, much less do 
we also dwell in Him, according to the gospel 
(John 17:21-23). It is only as we are in Him that 
we are the "new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17). 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



53 



Christian believers of the more spiritual type, 
with rare exceptions, have not the personal Christ- 
consciousness and the personal God-consciousness. 
Their knowledge is that of inference. Repentance 
unto God with faith in Christ has brought them sal- 
vation from sin, witnessed by the Holy Spirit. And 
the fact of the personal God and personal Christ, 
is the necessary inference. But this knowledge by 
direct intuition, as Christ knows the Father, is rare 
indeed even among the most devout followers of 
Christ. In fact, this experience is generally re- 
garded as fanaticism. 

But this objection simply discloses the general 
ignorance of real Gospel Christianity; for Christ 
plainly declares of His sheep, "I know mine own 
and Mine own know Me, even as the Father knoweth 
Me, and I know the Father" R. V. (John 10:15). 

The knowledge between Christ and His own is 
the same in nature as that between the Father and 
Christ. The spiritual exegete, Dr. F. Godet, on 
this text, says : "This knowledge is reciprocal. They 
[Christ and His sheep] thus live in the untroubled 
light of a perfect mutual knowledge . . . The 
conjunctive, even as [kathos — according as] does 
not express a simple comparison as hosper [as] 
would do ; but it indicates that the Christian's love 
is of the same nature as that which unites Christ 
with God. It is as if the luminous medium in which 
the heart of the Son and the heart of the Father 
meet each other, were enlarged so as to become 
that in which the heart of Jesus and His sheep 
meet each other." 

This union with Christ is expressed by Dr. A. W. 
Meyer on John 17:20 as follows: "This ethical 
unity of all believers, to be specifically Christian, 
must correspond as to its original type \ kathos] to 



54 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



the reciprocal fellowship between the Father and 
the Son (according to which the Father lives and 
moves in the Son, and the Son in the Father)." 

All this lies beyond the spiritual horizon of our 
conventional Christianity. It is because, as Bishop 
Phillips Brooks says, "The idea of rescue has mon- 
opolized our religion." 

Indeed, but few people see in Christianity more 
than deliverance from sin and consequent hell, and 
final admittance into heaven, where there is no 
sin. And, actually, the vast majority of professed 
Christians do not believe it possible to be freed 
from sin in this life. With them, heaven alone 
gives salvation and security from sin. In this they 
substitute heaven in place of Christ. 

This fragmentary view of the gospel is the chief 
hindrance to its success. In order to gospelize the 
nations (Matt. 28 :19) the religious community 
must first be saved from doubt and skepticism con- 
cerning the gospel. 

The sameness and oneness of believers with 
Christ and the Father, indicated in the foregoing 
Scriptures, is the present duty superseding all other 
obligations. The world's belief in Christ is con- 
ditioned on it. 

Nothing else has Christ made plainer: "Neither 
pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall 
believe on me through their word ; that they all 
may be one, as thou Father art in me and I in 
thee, that they also may be one in us: that the 
world may believe that thou didst send me. And 
the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, 
that they may be one even as we are one ; I in them 
and thou in me, that they may be perfected into 
one, that the world may know that thou didst send 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



55 



me, and lovest them even as thou lovest me" R. V. 
(John 17:21-23). 

What Christ has given us, we are obligated to 
accept. His glory [Ver. 22] has been given to ef- 
fect this oneness with Christ and God. This im- 
plies the personal presence of Christ and of God the 
Father. 

On this point there is much confusion. Careless 
use of terms and lack of close attention to Christ's 
own words will account for this. His gracious gifts 
are taken for His personality. But Christ keeps 
the distinction between the two always clear. 

He said to His disciples, "Peace I leave with you; 
my peace I give unto you" (John 14:27). Also 
"Continue ye in my love: If ye keep my command- 
ments ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept 
my Father's commandments and abide in His love" 
(John 15:9, 10). "These things have I spoken unto 
you that my joy might remain in you" (John 
15:11). 

Christ's peace, love, and joy here mentioned and 
Christ, are not identical ; yet many think that be- 
cause they have these, they have Christ Himself. 

Peace is not Christ ; neither is love nor joy Christ. 
Christ is a Divine Person. His presence within is 
self-evidencing. His personal presence within the 
adult Christian is attested by consciousness as 
clearly as His personal presence incarnate at Jeru- 
salem was attested by the outward senses of His 
disciples. 

This is essential Christianity. The Bampton Lec- 
tures declare rightly: "Christianity is non-existent 
apart from Christ; it centres in Christ, radiates now 
as at first from Christ" (Lord's Divinity, p. 127). 

From the Scripture standpoint, salvation from sin 
and Christianity are not one and the same. One 



56 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



may be freed from sin, as were the Old Testament 
saints enrolled in the Eleventh Chapter of Hebrews, 
and yet not be a Christian — one conscious of the 
personality of Christ and of God, as John speaks, 
"Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with 
His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3). 

This manifestation of Christ in the Christian be- 
liever's consciousness was foretold by Christ: "I 
will come to you" ; "He that hath my command- 
ments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; 
and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, 
and I will love him, and will manifest myself to 
him" (John 14:18-21); "If a man love me, he will 
keep my words ; and my Father will love him, 
and we will come unto him, and make our abode 
with him" (John 14:23). 

This presence is continuous, therefore it cannot 
refer to His appearing to the disciples after His 
resurrection. It must mean His personal presence 
revealed by the Holy Spirit. 

Brown and Fausset rightly declare: "By the 
coming of the Spirit the presence of Christ was 
not only continued to His spiritually enlightened 
disciples, but rendered far more efficacious and bliss- 
ful than His bodily presence had been before the 
Spirit's coming" (Commentary, p. 83). 

Dr. Adam Clarke comments on "abode with 
Him" — "will make His heart our temple where God 
the Father, Son and Spirit shall rest, receive hom- 
age, and dwell to eternity. Thus will / manifest 
myself to the believing, obedient disciple" (Com- 
mentary, Vol. V., p. 624). Dr. D. D. Whedon com- 
ments, "Here doubtless is a coming which is not 
bodily but spiritual." . . . "The coming of the 
present verse is not the bodily coming of the final 
day, but inasmuch as the Spirit is the Spirit of 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



57 



Christ, so Christ is present both in His own Spirit 
as Son of God, and in His representative, the Holy 
Spirit." . . . "This manifestation of Christ to 
the soul is self-evidencing. There may be false 
imaginations just as there may be dreams; but these 
false imaginations can no more invalidate or de- 
stroy the certainty of that manifestation, than 
dreams can destroy the certainty of any reality 
viewed by our waking senses. He who does 
not recognize from his own inner feelings what this 
manifestation is, stands in great need of a deeper 
religious experience" (Comment., Vol. II., p. 361.) 

Dr. August Wilhelm Meyer, styled the "prince 
of exegetes," says on this Scripture : "In the mis- 
sion of the Spirit, the self-communication of the ex- 
alted Christ takes place." 

The spiritual censor of theology in John Wesley's 
time, the Rev. John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, as- 
serts on this point, that Mr. Wesley "clearly distin- 
guished Christian faith, properly so-called, or faith 
in Christ glorified, not only from the faith of a 
heathen, but also from the faith of initial Christian- 
ity" (Works, Vol. I., p. 589). Furthermore he says, 
' The apostles and other disciples, by the Holy 
Ghost, were made partakers of Christ glorified, 
either on Pentecost or after it" (Works, Vol. I., p. 
592). Mr. Fletcher further declares: "The holi- 
ness and happiness of the first Christians depended 
on the experimental knowledge of the mystery of 
the Holy Trinity, or of God manifested in their 
souls as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" (Works 
Vol. IV., p. 45). 

This personal Divine indwelling is at once the 
cause and conservator of real Christian ethics. Paul 
makes it the condition of spiritual advancement: "I 
bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every 



58 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



family in heaven and on earth is named, that he 
would grant you, according to the riches of His 
glory, that ye may be strengthened with power 
through His Spirit in the inward man; that Christ 
may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end 
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may 
be strong to apprehend with all saints what is the 
breadth and length and heighth and depth, and to 
know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, 
that ye may be filled unto all the fillings of God" 
R. V. (Eph. 3:14-19). 

It is the ignoring of this personal Divine indwell- 
ing as the enabling provision and performing, that 
leads people to doubt or deny the duty to live the 
Christ life — "to walk even as he walked" (1 John 
2 :6) ; "to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleas- 
ing" [pleasing God always in all things], "being 
fruitful in every good work and increasing unto the 
full knowledge of God ; strengthened with all might 
[dynamized with all dynamite, Gr.], according to 
the power [kr at os-dommion] of His glory unto all 
patience and long-suffering with joyfulness (Col. 
1:10, 11). 

This epignosis — "full knowledge" (Whedon) 
"perfect knowledge" (Alford) is not the limit to ad- 
vancement, but a condition and instrument for ad- 
vancement. Instance, the knowledge of forgive- 
ness and regeneration must be perfect, before one 
can advance to further steps of grace : "As ye have 
therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk 
ye in Him" (Col. 2:6). One must be sure of faith, 
or he cannot add courage, etc: "To faith add cour- 
age ; to courage, knowledge ; to knowledge, self-con- 
trol ; to self-control, patience," etc. (2 Peter 1:3-8). 
"Each preceding grace leads to the following; each 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



59 



following tempers and perfects the preceding" 
(Wesley). 

From the customary viewpoint of sin, such per- 
fection of character ennobling one's entire person- 
ality is not possible; but, from the standpoint of 
God-provided grace, man is enabled and obligated 
to become like God: "Like as He who called you is 
holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of liv- 
ing: because it is written, 'Ye shall be holy; for I am 
holy,'" R. V. (1 Peter 1:15-16). 

Very rightly Dr. Adolf Wuttke declares: "The 
moral goal of every human being is moral perfec- 
tion; and all that conduces thereto is for every such 
being an absolute duty, that is, it is God's will and 
law concerning him" (Christian Ethics, Vol. II., 

P- 112 >- 

As already indicated, the Divine provision and 
procedure, to reach this goal of complete likeness 
to God in both character and conduct, involves the 
Holy Trinity. And this is the condition and cov- 
enant of Christian baptism (Matt. 28:19). 

The Christian disciple, or convert, is not bap- 
tized into pardon of sins or purity from "sin in the 
flesh" (Rom. 8 :3) nor into any gift or work of 
grace, but into the triune personality of God. Con- 
structive righteousness in God so far excels the de- 
struction of sin, that sin is not even named in the 
baptismal bond (Matt. 28:19). 

Circumcision under "The Law and Prophets" 
disposed of the sin question. And "The Law and 
Prophets" were until John: "since that time the 
kingdom of God is preached" (Luke 16:16). That 
this kingdom of God is the gospel dispensation — 
Christianity, Christ puts beyond question. He sent 
the Twelve "to preach the kingdom of God" . . . 
"And they departed, and went through the towns 



GO 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



preaching the gospel" (Luke 9:2, 6). Therefore 
the gospel, or Christianity, is the kingdom of God. 

Respecting circumcision the eminent theologian 
of all Methodism for a century, Richard Watson, 
declares : "Circumcision held out the promise of 
justification by faith alone to every truly penitent 
offender. It went further, and was a sign of sanc- 
tification, or the taking away of the pollution of 
sin, as well as the pardon of actual offences, and 
thus was the visible emblem of a regenerate mind and 
a renewed life. This will appear from the following 
passages : "For he is not a Jew which is one out- 
wardly in the flesh ; but he is a Jew which is one 
inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, 
in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is 
not of men, but of God" (Rom. 2:28, 29). "And the 
Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the 
heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all 
thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest 
live" (Deut. 30:6) (Theolog. Institutes, Vol. II., 
p. 626). 

While circumcision denotes the removal of all 
sin, Christian baptism indicates devotement to the 
Holy Trinity (Matt. 28:19). That is destructive; 
this is constructive. That denotes the removal of 
obstructions to building; this indicates the building 
itself (Rom. 2:29; Col. 2:11, 12). 

Christian baptism is so intensely constructive as 
to the persons in the Trinity, that sin is not even 
mentioned in any way in the Lord's commission to 
disciple the nations (Matt. 28:19, 20). 

So significant is this, that the great exegete, Dr. 
August W. Meyer, boldly declares : "The Trinity 
is the point in which all Christian ideas and inter- 
ests unite : at once the beginning and end of all 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



61 



insight into Christianity" (Lehre von Trinitaet, 
I., b. 42). 

In like manner the eminent Presbyterian theolo- 
gian, Dr. C. Hodge, declares: "The Trinity deter- 
mines the religious experience of believers" (Sys- 
tematic Theology, Vol. I., p. 422). 

The Holy Trinity is not an inscrutable mystery 
to puzzle or confuse the mind, but a discriminating 
Power shaping and conserving Christian experience 
and Christian ethics. Accordingly, John Wesley, 
greatest personality of the Eighteenth Century 
(Dean Stanley) declares: "The knowledge of the 
Three-One God is interwoven with all true Chris- 
tian faith ... I do not say that every real Chris- 
tian can say with the Marquis de Renty, T bear 
about with me continually an experimental verity 
and a plenitude of the presence of the ever blessed 
Trinity.' I apprehend this is not the experience of 
'babes,' but rather 'fathers' in Christ" (Sermons, 
Vol. II., p. 24). To the same effect, Dr. Adam 
Clarke and Dr. D. D Whedon on John 14:23. 

The noted Dr John Owen [1657 A.D.] declares: 
"The saints have distinct communion with the 
Father and the Sonne with the Holy Spirit (that is, 
distinctively with the Father and distinctively with the 
Sonne and distinctively with the Holy Spirit") — 
(Owen on Spiritual Communion, p. 7). 

The celebrated polemic of early Methodism, John 
Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, seeing the intimate re- 
lation of the sacred Trinity to Christian ethics, 
aptly observes that "Christian virtues flourish or 
decay in proportion as the doctrine of the Trinity 
is rendered clear, or obscure among men" (Fletch- 
er's Works, Vol. IV., p. 46). 

It is of vital importance that we recognize the 
Scriptural distinction between a child of God and a 



62 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



Christian. All the great exegetes, A. W. Meyer, F. 
Godet, John Wesley, Adam Clarke, John Fletcher, 
Richard Watson, D. D. Whedon, observe it. In 
this they follow Christ (Matt. 11:11-13; 22:36-40; 
Luke 16:16), and the Apostle Paul (Acts 28:23; 2 
Cor. 3:7-18; Heb. 8:10; 9:8; 10:1-29). 

And not, with Paul, to follow Christ in distin- 
guishing the Mosaic dispensation with its destruc- 
tion of sin and restoration to God's favor and fam- 
ily, from Christianity with its constructive king- 
dom of the heavens [Gr.] administered by God 
manifested within the believer as Father, Son and 
Holy Spirit, — not to distinguish between Moses and 
Christ, is to obscure the transcending glory of the 
gospel (2 Cor. 3:10-18; Matt. 11:11-13), weaken the 
Church before the world, and spread confusion 
throughout Christian ethics. 

As we have already seen, Christian ethics can be 
known and accomplished only by Christ person- 
ally dwelling in the Christian believer and, with 
his co-operation, accomplishing, or doing, Christian 
ethics. 

Paul testifies this concerning his ministry: "It 
pleased God ... to reveal His Son in me, that 
I might preach Him among the heathen" (Gal. 
1:16). He says the same concerning his daily liv- 
ing: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no 
longer that I live, but Christ liveth in me, and the 
life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, 
the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved 
me, and gave Himself up for me" R. V. (Gal. 2:20). 

This conscious indwelling of the personal Christ 
is not optional with the genuine Christian. It is a 
matter of promise and of prayer on the part of 
Christ, consequently a matter of obligation on part 
of the Christian : "At that day ye shall know that 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



63 



I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He 
that hath my commandments and keepeth them, 
loveth me; and I will love him and will manifest 
myself to him" . . . If a man love Me he will 
keep my word; and my Father will love him, and 
we will come unto him, and make our abode with 
him" (John 14:20-23). 

For this personal indwelling, Christ prayed: "And 
the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them ; 
that they may be one, even as we are one: / in 
them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected 
into one; that the world may know that thou didst 
send me, and lovedst them even as thou lovedst 
me" R. V. (John 17:22, 23). 

This personal Divine indwelling is for all Chris- 
tian believers through all time : "Neither pray I for 
these alone, but for them also which shall believe on 
me through their word" (John 17:20). Accordingly 
Paul observes : "My little children, of whom I trav- 
ail in birth until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. 
4 :19 ; "The riches of the glory of this mystery 
among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the 
hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). 

As Paul prayed that the churches of Gallatia and 
Colosse might know this indwelling of Christ, like- 
wise he prays for the Church at Ephesus: "I bow 
my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 
. . . That He would grant you, according to the 
riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might 
by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may 
dwell in your hearts by faith," etc. (Eph. 3:14-17). 

In this prayer and in that of Christ (John 17 : 
9-23) gospel grace comes to climax. The deep- 
seeing John Fletcher declares with truth: "This 
spiritual abode of Christ in the souls of His people 
is the most glorious mystery of the gospel" (Fletch- 



64 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



er's Works, Vol. III., p. 196). Mr. Fletcher adds, 
"We have to lament that this important part of the 
gospel is so rarely published among professing 
Christians. The greater part of the clergy are to 
be ranked as the most violent opposers of spiritual 
religion." . . . "All our ecclesiastics, however, 
are not of this description. Among the thousands 
of this sacred order we find many who are pos- 
sessed of godly fear, etc. . . . "They preach the 
cross of Christ; but they proclaim not the spiritual 
coming of a risen Savior" (Fletcher's Works, Vol. 
III., p. 146). 

This admonition of one hundred and fifty years 
ago has present application. In this day this doc- 
trine is not preached, save with very rare excep- 
tions. 

We are not seeing present responsibility as Mr. 
Fletcher saw it a century and a half ago. He said : 
"To reject the Son of God manifested in the Spirit, 
as worldly Christians are universally observed to 
do, is a crime of equal magnitude with that of the 
Jews who rejected Christ manifest in the flesh" 
(Fletcher's Works, Vol. III., p. 181). 

This subject to most people seems difficult of ap- 
prehension. In fact it lies beyond their spiritual 
horizon. Some regard it as hyperorthodoxy ; oth- 
ers, as heterodoxy. And some brand it as danger- 
ous fanaticism. 

Lack of apprehension on this point has its cause 
or causes. First, is the want of information. But 
rarely is this subject taught in pulpit or press. Sec- 
ondly, deteriorated moral vision inducing spiritual 
insensibility (2 Peter 1:9), is a very common cause. 
The eminent naturalist, Charles Darwin, confesses 
this malady: "In my younger days I was deeply 
religious ; but I made my mind a machine for grind- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



65 



ing out general laws in the material world, and my 
spiritual nature atrophied," i. e., wasted away. A 
third cause of this lack of apprehension is the at- 
tempt to discern it with the intellect, whereas 
spiritual things are "spiritually discerned"; the nat- 
ural — psychic — man "cannot know them" (1 Cor. 
2 :14). By the natural faculties "things of the Spirit 
of God cannot be discovered, but "God hath re- 
vealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit 
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God" 
(1 Cor. 2:10). 

To accomplish this, the Spirit Himself is sent to 
be accepted by faith (Gal. 3:2, 14). He was prom- 
ised by the Father (Luke 24:49) and also by the 
Son (John 14:26; 16:7-15). And Christ commanded 
His apostles "that they should not depart from 
Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father" 
(Acts 1:4). His coming into them (Acts 2:4) gave 
them power to be witnesses unto Him. Apart from 
this enduement of power, all knowledge of Christ is 
simply inferential, not immediate and personal ; for 
"no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the 
Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3). 

The spiritual John Fletcher rightly declares: 
"Without this Spirit, we must continue strangers 
to the most exalted truths of the gospel, and be cut 
off from the purest springs of religious consola- 
tion (Fletcher's Works, Vol. III., p. 196). In other 
words, we must continue strangers to real Christi- 
anity, both as to experience and ethics. 

Christianity is essentially more than freedom 
from sin and perfect love accomplished under the 
"Law and Prophets" (Matt. 22: 36-40). Accord- 
ingly Dean Alford declares: "The gift of the Spirit 
at and since the day of Pentecost zvas, and is, some- 
thing totally distinct from anything before that 



66 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



time, a new and loftier dispensation." And this 
is the consensus of orthodox theologians well ex- 
pressed by Dr. C. Hodge : "The Christian economy 
is specially the dispensation of the Spirit" (Sys- 
tematic Theology, Vol. I., p. 376). 

As already indicated, this dispensation of the 
Spirit is entered by faith (Acts 2:33; Gal. 3:2, 14). 
The famous polemic of John Wesley's time, John 
Fletcher, well declares: "The opening of this dis- 
pensation in our hearts requires, on our part, not 
only faith in Christ, but a peculiar faith in the prom- 
ise of the Father; a promise, this, which has the 
Holy Spirit for its great object" (Fletcher's Works, 
Vol. II., p. 592). 

Notwithstanding special Scriptures on this point, 
the concurrence of standard theologians, and the 
universal need of a more powerful manifestation of 
God, yet some have feared that teaching faith in 
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit distinctively, tends 
to mystify the subject of religion. But quite the 
contrary is true. Instead of beclouding, it clears 
the subject. This fact is well expressed by the 
Rev. John Fletcher in his letter to John Wesley: 
"Nothing throws down unscriptural mysticism like 
holding out the promise of the Father and the full- 
ness of the Spirit to be received now by faith in the 
two Promisers, the Father and the Son" (Fletcher's 
Works, Vol. IV., p. 386). 

The concurrent testimony of trustworthy wit- 
nesses to this fact is voiced by John Wesley's model 
saint, the Marquis de Renty: "I bear in me ordin- 
arily an experimental verity and plenitude of the 
most Holy Trinity, which elevates me to a simple 
view of God." 

President Jonathan Edwards [Presbyterian] tes- 
tifies : "I have many times had a sense of the glory 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



67 



of the Third Person in the Trinity, in His office of 
sanctifier; in His holy operation communicating 
divine light and life to the soul" (Edwards' Works, 
Vol. L, p. 133). 

On the importance of obtaining the Holy Spirit, 
President Edwards says: "The state of the times 
extremely requires a fullness of the Divine Spirit 
in ministers, and we ought to give ourselves no rest 
until we have obtained it. And in order to do this, 
I should think that ministers, above all persons, 
ought to be in secret prayer and fasting, and also 
much in prayer and fasting with one another. It 
seems to me it would be becoming the circum- 
stances of the present day, if ministers in a neigh- 
borhood would often meet together and spend days 
in fasting and fervent prayer among themselves" 
(President Edwards on Revivals, p. 414). 

President Edwards held that Pentecost was not 
a pattern-day for the future, but simply the inaugu- 
ration of Christianity: "That was only, as it were, 
a feast of first-fruits ; the ingathering is at the end 
of the year, or in the last ages of the Christian 
church as represented in Rev. 14: 14-16, and will 
probably as much exceed what was in the first ages 
of the Christian Church ... as that exceeded all 
that had been before under the Old Testament, con- 
fined only to the land of Judea" (Edwards on Revi- 
vals, p. 198). 

John Wesley's chosen polemic, the Rev. John 
Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, held the same views, 
and insisted that "the day of Pentecost was the 
opening of the dispensation of the Spirit — the great 
promise of the Father ; and that the latter-day glory 
which he believed was near at hand, should far ex- 
ceed the first effusion of the Spirit" (Tyerman's 
Life of Fletcher, p. 468). 



68 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



With this high ideal before them the churches, 
instead of depending on the pastor or the evange- 
list, were taught to depend, with their ministers, 
solely on God. As a consequence, under the awak- 
ening Spirit of God falling upon them, people often 
cried out or fell prostrate while the minister was 
preaching. 

These manifestations were frequent in the "Great 
Awakening" under President Jonathan Edwards, 
and they were quite common in the "Great Reform- 
ation" under John Wesley and his associates and 
their immediate successors. 

These two movements revealed Christianity in 
its highest life and purest morals in modern times. 
Prayer, secret, social and persistent, gave these re- 
ligious movements their rise and progress, thus 
illustrating the truth stated by the eminent Luth- 
eran ethicist, Dr. Adolf Wuttke : "Prayer is the 
highest moral act ; and all other moral action re- 
ceives its moral worth solely from its relation to 
this" (Christian Ethics, Vol. II., p. 221). 

Another prominent witness to special clearness 
in personal experience and in doctrine in conse- 
quence of the personal indwelling of Christ, is Lady 
Maxwell. Like the Marquis de Renty, she testifies 
to clearness of spiritual views as a result: "My 
fellowship with the Father and Son is more inti- 
mate and uninterrupted. I am enabled to realize 
their presence wherever I am. My meditations are 
delightful, my views clear," etc. (Life of Lady 
Maxwell, p. 131). Still further: "I see how much 
I stand in need of sinking deeper in His love, and 
more free from wanderings" (Life of Lady Max- 
well, p. 135). "I was favored with a clear view of 
the Trinity, which I never had before, and enjoyed 
fellowship with a triune God" . . . "Hitherto 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



69 



I have been led to view the Holy Ghost chiefly as 
an agent ; now I behold Him distinctly as the Third 
Person of the Trinity" (Life of Lady Maxwell, p. 
258). 

The evangelistic power attending this conscious 
personal indwelling of the sacred Trinity was phe- 
nomenal: "At many of our preaching places, we 
cannot meet the classes on account of the cries of 
the distressed. Sometimes fifty in a day are truly 
converted to the living God ... At two quar- 
terly meetings during these four days there were 
between two and three hundred savingly brought to 
God" . . . "Such a sight I never beheld before. 
The penitents lay in rows on the ground, crying 
for mercy at the hand of God ; many of whom were 
the principal gentry of the country" (Life of Lady 
Maxwell, p. 269). 

Concerning her personal experience, Lady Max- 
well writes : "On Thursday, the 14th, 1793, He con- 
descended to give me a sweet manifestation of the 
Holy Trinity, and a very clear perception of the 
personality of the Holy Spirit (Life of Lady Max- 
well, p. 316). ... "A full union with Deity, that 
is my privilege and His will concerning me" . . 
. "In short, it felt the most simple and also the 
most pure state of enjoyment that language can 
describe; O, to feel it every moment!" (Life of Lady 
Maxwell, p. 322). Here is explicit evidence that a 
clear consciousness of the persons in the Trinity 
makes clear and simple the mysteries of the gospel 
hitherto inscrutable. 

Neither does this deeper knowledge of God tend 
to spiritual pride, but the contrary. "He has con- 
siderably deepened my experience, and greatly ex- 
tended my prospects, though yet I am very far 
short of the Christian standard. At times I am so 



70 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



led into Jehovah, permitted so to sink into Deity, 
as I can by no words express. My enjoyment is ex- 
quisite, but always guarded by a sacred awe" . . . 
"O, that I may be enabled fully to improve to the 
utmost this wonderful intercourse with Deity; 
aware that it is no further useful than as it proves 
of an assimilating nature" (Life of Lady Maxwell, 
p. 374). ^ 

Christian ethics in the outer life can never rise 
higher in moral excellence than one's inner life- 
union with God. This is self-evident. Experiment- 
ally knowing the Divine persons in Deity, instead of 
inducing silent mysticism within, is the only way 
for the full manifestation of the ''fruit of the Spirit, 
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, faith, meekness, temperance [self-control]" 
(Gal. 5:22, 23). 

"The spiritual manifestation of the Son of God" 
had in Rev. John Fletcher a powerful advocate. He 
estimated this "the most invaluable of all bless- 
ings," and showed forcibly in six letters filling fifty- 
three octavo pages, that "the Son of God manifests 
Himself, sooner or later, in a spiritual manner," 
showing that the "New Testament abounds with 
accounts of particular revelations of the Son of 
God; as, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God" (Matt. 5 :8) ; "He that hath my com- 
mandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth 
me ; and he that loveth me shall be loved by my 
Father, and I will love him, and will manifest my- 
self unto him" (John 14:21) ; "If a man love me, he 
will keep my words; and my Father will love him, 
and we will come unto him, and make our abode 
with him" (John 14:23); "God who commanded 
light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our 
hearts to give the light [resplendence] of the knowl- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



71 



edge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" 
(2 Cor. 4:6). 

Such Scriptures refute the palpable error that 
personal manifestations of God were granted to the 
patriarchs and prophets because they did not have 
the written Scriptures and are now withheld from 
us because we do have them. 

On this point John Fletcher impressively ex- 
claims: "If because we have the letter of Scripture, 
we must be deprived of all immediate manifesta- 
tions of Christ and His Spirit we are great losers 
by that blessed Book, and we might reasonably say, 
'Lord bring us back to the dispensation of Moses! 
Thy Jewish servants could formerly converse with 
Thee face to face.' "... "The ark of the coven- 
ant went before them, and struck terror into all 
their adversaries ; but a Book, of which our enemies 
make daily sport, is the only revelation of Thy 
power among us," etc. . . . O Lord ! if because 
we have this blessed picture of Thee, we must have 
no discovery of the glorious original, have com- 
passion on us, take back Thy precious Book, and 
impart Thy more precious Self to us, as Thou didst 
to Thy ancient people" (Life of Fletcher, Tyer- 
mann, p. 127, 128). 

Our neglect at this point is no innocent oversight. 
It does immense harm. It is only by accepting all 
gracious provision that we can avoid deception and 
final overthrow: "Put on the whole armor of God 
that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of 
the devil," etc. (Eph. 6:11-18). Short of this, no 
one stands. 

Furthermore, if we do not accept these Scriptures 
foretelling and narrating the spiritual manifesta- 
tions of God's personal Son in Christian believers, 
we must also reject the Scriptures foretelling and 



72 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



narrating His physical manifestations in Judea. 
Those Scriptures are as plain as these; and to accept 
these, while we reject those, forfeits our right to pub- 
lic confidence. To merit confidence we must be con- 
sistent. 

John Wesley was delighted with John Fletcher's 
clear presentation and strong defense of the "spirit- 
ual manifestation of the Son of God," and pressed 
it upon others. 

He says of Mr. Fletcher: "It seems God has raised 
him up for this very thing" (Wesley's Works, Vol. 
VII., p. 177). 

To Miss Ritchie, a witness to this experience, Mr. 
Wesley wrote : "Do you never lose your conscious- 
ness of the presence of the Three-One God?" Again, 
August 24, 1777 : "Do you still find the same con- 
sciousness of the presence of the ever-blessed 
Trinity?" (Wesley's Works, Vol. VII., p. 181). 

He wrote to Miss Jane Bisson, November 3, 1789 : 
"Do you still find deep, uninterrupted communion 
with God; with the Three-One God, with the 
Father and the Son, through the Spirit?" (John 
Wesley's Works, Vol. VII., p. 210). 

Three months before his death, Mr. Wesley again 
wrote her on November 9, 1790 : "I trust you still 
enjoy communion with God the Father and His Son 
Jesus Christ. I hope you are still sensible, wherever 
you go, of the presence of the ever-blessed Trinity" 
(Wesley's Works, Vol. VII., p. 211). 

To preserve and promulgate this lofty ideal, Mr. 
Wesley had it incorporated in their book of hymns 
published in 1741. In the preface the perfect Chris- 
tians are described as : "Having the witness in 
themselves. Thou art an heir of God, a joint-heir 
with Christ, continually heightens the inexpressible 
hunger they feel after a renewal in His image 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



73 



in 'righteousness and holiness.' Then God gives 
them a single eye and a pure heart ; He stamps upon 
them His own image and superscription; He cre- 
ateth them anew in Christ Jesus ; He cometh to 
them with His Son and blessed Spirit, and fixing 
His abode in their soids, bringeth them into the 
rest which remaineth for the people of God" (Wes- 
ley's Christ, Perfect., p. 38). 

And in 1742 another volume of hymns was pub- 
lished from which we quote: 

"O joyful sound of gospel grace ! 
Christ shall in me appear ; 
I, even I, shall see His face, 
I shall be holy here." 

"Come, O my God, thyself reveal, 
Fill all this mighty void ; 
Thou only canst my spirit fill, 
Come, O my God, my God!" 

In 1749: 

"Unfold the hidden mystery, 
The second gift impart ; 
Reveal Thy glorious self in me, 
In every waiting heart." 

Mr. Wesley regarded this distinctively personal 
consciousness of God as an essential in truly Chris- 
tian faith: "The knowledge of the Three-One God 
is interwoven with all true Christian faith" (Ser- 
mons, Vol. II., p. 24). He held it as fundamental 
in the "spiritual qualifications" of a preacher; hence 
his admonition : "We do not sufficiently watch over 
each other. Should we not frequently ask each 



74 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



other, 'Do you walk closely with God? Have you 
now fellowship with the Father and the Son?'" 
(Discipline, 1908, p. 104). 

As Mr. Wesley, in letters to members of his 
society, pressed this question : "Have you deep un- 
interrupted communion with the Father and the 
Son through the Spirit?" so he would have his 
preachers press upon each other the question. 
"Have you now fellowship with the Father and the 
Son?" 

This subject is given the more extended consid- 
eration because of its causal relation to Christian 
ethics. It is this doctrinal and conscious anchorage 
in the Holy Trinity (Matt. 28:19) that enabled 
early Methodism to vindicate its theology and gain 
its spiritual triumph and its moral leadership, de- 
spite the seven hundred and twenty volumes writ- 
ten against it (Prof. Bartlett). 

Herein is verified the statement of President W. 
F. Warren, of Boston University, made four de- 
cades ago: "In Methodism we recognize the high- 
est stage both of life and doctrine, which Christian- 
ity has as yet reached" (Systematische Theo- 
logie, 85). 

Among the more recent advocates and witnesses 
of this threefold faith and experience are the fol- 
lowing: 

1 — Dr. Andrew Murray: "The greatness of this 
salvation consists in this, that it comes to us from 
and through The Triune God . . . There is no 
fellowship with the Father but through the Son, and 
no fellowship with the Son but through the Holy 
Spirit in us. This is the greatness of the great sal- 
vation ; in its offer the Three-One God comes to 
us" (Holiest of All, pp. 69, 70). "It was the Hoh 
Spirit who, when the way had been opened, came 



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75 



out from the Holiest of All on the day of Pentecost, 
to impart to men the life and power of the glorified 
Christ" (Holiest of All, p. 288). 

"Entering into the Holiest (Heb. 10:19-22) is only 
the beginning of the Christian life" (Holiest of All, 
p. 389). 

2 — Bishop William Taylor, the greatest among 
modern witnesses, bears this testimony: "I have 
been accustomed to walk with God for forty-four 
years without a break. Sometimes I have had a 
special manifestation to my spirit of the Son of 
God, when it was my pleasure to perceive His dis- 
tinct personality, and to sit in His presence and 
admire and adore Him, and in melting love sympa- 
thize with Him in His stupendous undertaking of 
bringing our lost race back to God, and feel the 
wish in my heart, 'Oh, that I could multiply myself 
into a thousand, and give a thousand years to help 
Jesus. 

"At other times I have had a special manifesta- 
tion of the personal Holy Ghost and the amazing 
love of the Spirit for a perishing world, and in ador- 
ing love and sympathy put myself entirely at His 
disposal, to illuminate and lead me according to 
His own infinite wisdom and love. 

"But ever since I took charge of this expedition 
to Africa, with no less appreciation and admiration 
of the personal Jesus and the personal Holy Sancti- 
fier, I have walked all these months in the manifes- 
tation of the personal presence of God the Father, 
with such enlarged perceptions of His wisdom, His 
love, His patience, and forbearance, His infinite 
desire to adjust the human conditions essential to 
the fulfillment of His covenant pledge to the Re- 
deemer, to give Him the heathen for His inheri- 
tance, and the uttermost part of the earth for His 



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possession. I sit in His presence, and more and 
more than ever before weep in adoring love" (Di- 
vine Life, 1886, p. 246). 

These eminent witnesses are trustworthy. Their 
rank in education, culture and spiritual insight com- 
mands the highest respect. 

Then, too, the nature of their testimony makes it 
impossible to doubt them. It is not the testimony 
of the senses, as hearing and seeing, wherein one 
may be deceived. But it is the testimony of inner 
consciousness wholly independent of the external 
senses, and is therefore infallible. Skeptical as well 
as Christian philosophers concede this. 

Of the former class, John Stuart Mill declares, 
"Whatever is known to us by consciousness is 
known beyond possibility of question." Of the lat- 
ter class, Sir William Hamilton declares "That 
given in consciousness is undoubtedly true." 

"Even the greatest skeptics have allowed that 
we must trust consciousness" (Dr. McCosh). 

This evidence is not an inference from any course 
of reason. It is intuitive. 

The standard for real Christian knowing is the 
mutual knowing of the Father and the Son of God. 
And this is not by inference. It is direct, imme- 
diate, intuitive. 

Likewise the mutual knowing of Christ and the 
real Christian is intuitive — back of, and prior to 
all sensation and mental processes. See Christ's 
testimony : "I know mine own, and mine own know 
me even as the Father knoweth me and I know the 
Father" R. V. (John 10:15). 

The conjunctive "Even as" instead of as [kathos 
instead of hosper] implies not only comparison, as 
hosper would do, but also essential conformity as 
to substance (Godet Meyer). The Christian's 



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77 



knowing Christ is intrinsically identical with Christ's 
knowing the Father. 

We must obtain the moral consciousness — the 
"know" — of Christ, in order to have the ethics — 
the morals — of Christ. 

The recent sensational attempt of persons lack- 
ing Christ's purity and power, "to do for one week 
as Christ would do in like circumstances," is at 
once unscriptural and unreasonable, if not presump- 
tuous. 

Gracious ability and moral accountability coin- 
cide. Divine provision and human performance 
exactly correspond in Scripture-Christianity. 

Inferior estimate of enabling grace produces in- 
ferior personal experience and inferior morals. Lack 
of holiness in ethics denotes lack of harmony with 
the Divine procedure. 

Approximating the New Testament standard is 
not Christian ethics. Real Christian ethics is to 
have ingrained in character and conduct the living 
personal Christ; rather it is Christ with the Father 
dwelling within by the Spirit, transforming and en- 
dowing, and directing the purified believer "from 
faith to faith" (Rom. 1:17), "from glory to glory" 
(2 Cor. 3:18), "unto all the fulness of God" (Eph. 
3:16-19). 

Man's fragmentary conception places the only 
limit to spiritual progress, yet he may be evermore 
lifting that limit "from faith to faith" (Rom. 1:17): 
"If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye 
shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto 
you" (John 15 :7) ; "All things are possible to him 
that believeth" (Mark 9:23). 

Christian privilege and Christ's prerogative coin- 
cide in this instance: "If ye keep my command- 
ments ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept 



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my Father's commandments and abide in His 
love" (John 15:10). 

This is the domain of spiritual certitude. Prob- 
ables and approximates are excluded; "For all the 
promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him, Amen, 
unto the Glory of God" (2 Cor. 1:20). 

Lack of Bible knowledge and of obedient faith 
lies at the root of all discord and discontent in hu- 
man society. Men know more about wickedness 
than about godliness. Their thinking and experi- 
ence in sin far exceed their thinking and experience 
in godliness. The general experience is one of sink- 
ing deeper and deeper into sin and of hiding from 
view more and more God's infinite provision for its 
complete extinction and man's restoration to union 
with God. 

The personal indwelling of the sacred Trinity 
shown in this chapter is the only vindication of the 
ethical teachings of Christ. It is the only solution 
of the obligation to "walk worthy of God" (2 Thess. 
2:12). Only God-character can "walk worthy of 
God" (Heb. 13:20, 21). And only in this domain 
of Christian experience will be found the solution 
of all the burning problems of our modern civiliza- 
tion: "The God of peace . . . make you perfect 
in every good work to do His will, doing in you that 
which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus 
Christ" (Heb. 13:21); "My God shall supply all 
your need according to his riches in glory by Christ 
Jesus" (Phil. 4:19). 

The teaching of complete salvation from sin, ac- 
tual (Rom. 3:25) and indwelling (Rom. 7:20; 8:3) 
requires for proof the personal deliverance from all 
sin resulting in perfect love as granted in the "Law 
and Prophets" (Matt. 22 :36-40 ; Lev. 19 :2, 18, 34) ; 
Equally so, the teaching of Christianity requires 



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79 



for its support the personal experience of the Sacred 
Trinity, which is "The beginning and the end of 
all insight into Christianity" (Meyer, Lehre von 
Trinitaet, 1:42). Likewise John Wesley: "The 
knowledge of the Three-One God is interwoven 
with all true Christian faith" (Sermons, Vol. II., 
p. 24). The reader must remember that these great 
exegetes distinguish between salvation from sin and 
Christianity. Faith for deliverance from all sin is 
one thing; faith for constructive holiness in the per- 
sonal consciousness of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit 
is quite another thing. 

This experience is of so great import that Christ 
withheld His followers from further preaching 
(Luke 24:49), until the Holy Spirit should come 
and make them witnesses to Him (Acts 1:8), as 
He would reveal the Father also. This Christ prom- 
ised to His obedient follower: "I will manifest my- 
self to him"; "The Father will love him, and we 
will come unto him and make our abode with him" 
(John 14:21, 23). 

They had already been witnesses to Christ's sav- 
ing and cleansing grace (John 13:10, 11; 15:3; 
17 :14,16). They must now be made witnesses to 
Him in His Divine personality. They had been 
enabled to testify to facts concerning Him; but they 
must now be enabled to testify to Himself as now 
glorified (Godet, Fletcher, Meyer). To reach this 
equipment, all else is called off— "Tarry ye in the 
city of Jerusalem" (Luke 24:49). 

This same order was observed in Christ calling 
Saul of Tarsus into the Apostolate: "It pleased God 
. . . to reveal His Son in me that I might preach 
Him among the heathen" (Gal. 1:16). 

From the Divine procedure in both these in- 
stances, it is quite clear that permission and equip- 



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ment to preach the gospel were conditioned on the 
personal Divine indwelling. 

One thing more is quite evident, namely, that this 
is God's standard for all Christians throughout all 
time. Of this our Lord's prayer is proof : "Neither 
pray I for these alone, but for them also which 
shall believe on me through their word. That they 
all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I 
in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the 
world may believe that thou hast sent me. And 
the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, 
that they may be one even as we are one : I in 
them and thou in me, that they may be perfected 
into one ; and that the world may know that thou hast 
sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me" 
(John 17:20-23). 

This is confirmed by the prayer of Paul for the 
church at Ephesus: "That He [God] would grant 
you, according to the riches of His glory, to be 
strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner 
man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith," 
etc. (Eph. 3:16-1.9). And, furthermore, the church 
was organized and officered in order to bring about 
this very thing in every Christian believer: "He 
gave some to be Apostles ; and some prophets ; and 
some evangelists ; and some pastors and teachers ; 
for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of 
the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 
till we all come into the unity of the faith and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect 
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness 
of Christ" (Eph. 4:11-13). 

"The fulness of Christ" implies His maturity and 
completeness of moral character, fully expressing 
the Father, "the glory thou hast given me I have 
given them" (John 17 :22) ; "God hath from the be- 



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81 



ginning chosen you unto salvation through sancti- 
fication of the Spirit and belief of the truth : where- 
unto He called you by our gospel, to the obtaining 
of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess. 
2:13, 14) ; "Who called you unto His kingdom and 
glory" (1 Thess. 2:12). 

Dr. August Wilhelm Meyer comments: "God 
calls the reader to participate in His kingdom [i. e., 
the Messianic] and in His [God's] glory; for Chris- 
tians are destined to enter upon the joint posses- 
sion of the doxa which God Himself has." 

Given the gospel equipment, the gospel standard 
of ethics is easily lived. 



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CHAPTER VI. 

Individual Ethics. 

Having seen the Divine provision making pos- 
sible Christian ethics, we may now consider its con- 
crete realization. This brings into prominence the 
individual. 

Herein Christian ethics parts from all others, both 
in contents and in development. 

Hindu ethics estimates the individual as a world- 
renouncing and self-vanishing personality. Com- 
plete self-effacement in Deity, or nirvana, is the 
acme of human bliss. 

The ethics of Japan values the individual as a 
loyal subject of a divine dynasty. And his personal 
worth rises with his rank indicated by the Mikado. 

In the ethics of China the individual has stand- 
ing only as he is a family-subject of obedience under 
an unchangeable world-order. The worship of an- 
cestors binds him to best things in the past and 
gives best footing for the present. 

According to the ethics of ancient Greece the 
worth of the individual is his value to the state, 
founded on human slavery of barbarians or trophies 
in war. Attica had 400,000 slaves ; Corinth, 460,000. 
And Sparta with 150,000 citizens had 500,000 slaves. 
Only the Hellene was a truly moral personality. 

But Christian ethics estimates the individual as 
a personal expression of God. "Your body is the 
temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 6 :19) ; "Ye are 
the temple of the living God, as God hath said: 'I 
will dwell in them and walk in them' " (2 Cor. 6 :16). 
The worth of the individual is intrinsic by virtue 



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83 



of the Divine union within : "As thou Father art in 
me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us" 
(John 17:21). 

Herein is the excellency of Christian ethics over 
all others. In the scales of moral worth it tips them 
all. Contrary to all others, it makes the individual 
the unit of measurement in society instead of being 
ranked by society. And, as is this moral unit r such 
is the moral community; for community is the 
moral unit, or individual, multiplied. 

No community can be better than the individ- 
uals comprising it. Ex-President Roosevelt has 
wisely said, "The worth of a civilization is the worth 
of the man at its centre. When this man lacks 
moral rectitude, material progress only makes bad 
worse, and so the problem still darkens and becomes 
more complex." 

Christian, that is, New Testament ethics, takes 
full account of the entire personality from first to 
last. To be well-born is fundamental. Eugenics is 
termed a new science, but its principles are not 
new. It seems new to some people because their 
attention is now specially directed to this part of 
real Christianity. 

The Christian Scriptures strongly safeguard hu- 
man life prenatal as well as postnatal. But this 
is perfectly plain only to persons renewed in the 
image of God. Only such persons see man's high 
rank and holy mission ; for "these things are spirit- 
ually discerned," hence the "natural man cannot 
know them" (1 Cor. 2:14). 

Prenatal life is safeguarded in these Scriptures: 
"As children of obedience, not fashioning your- 
selves according to your former lusts in the time 
of your ignorance ; but like as He who called you 
is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of 



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living" R. V. (1 Pet. 1:14, 15). "All manner of 
living" includes all periods, actions and conditions 
of human life. 

"Neither yield ye your members as instruments 
of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves 
unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and 
your members as instruments of righteousness un- 
to God" (Rom. 6:13). Furthermore: "The body 
is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the 
Lord for the body. Know ye not that your bodies 
are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the 
members of Christ and make them the members of 
an harlot? God forbid" . . . "What! know ye 
not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit 
who is in you, which ye have from God? And ye 
are not your own ; for ye are bought with a price : 
glorify God, therefore, in your body" R. V. (1 Cor. 
6:13,15,19,20). 

Every limb and organ of the body, every function 
of the soul, and every faculty of the mind has its 
divine purpose, and is sacred to the Divine service: 
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
strength, and with all thy mind" (Luke 10:27). 

"Ye are not your own." One's personality is not 
his property. By virtue of the atonement it be- 
longs to God ; therefore, the command, "Glorify 
God in your body." 

Throughout the entire domain of the bodily ap- 
petites God's law is: "Whether, therefore, ye eat 
or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory 
of God" (1 Cor. 10:31). 

Eugenics. 

This word means literally the science of beget- 



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85 



ting well, or being well born. The eminent natur- 
alist, F. Galton, calls it "The science of improving 
stock, whether human or animal." 

And to be well born implies to have been well 
conceived and well nurtured, in order to be well 
born. 

This principle of heredity was emphasized in the 
Divine command to the prospective mother of Sam- 
son, that she "drink not wine nor strong drink, and 
eat not any unclean thing" (Judges 13:4, 14). 

The physical basis of life was hereby conserved ; 
and the psychic was safeguarded by the command, 
"He shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb" 
(Judges 13:5). This involved purity of thought 
and purity of feeling as well as goodness in con- 
duct ; for "Nazarites were purer than snow, they 
were whiter than milk" (Lam. 4:7). 

The significance of parental physical conditions 
and of parental thought and feeling upon offspring 
has never, as yet, had a fair consideration. It may 
not be saying too much to question whether or not 
very many, if not most, people start for this world 
through accident or lust, rather than through reas- 
onable and Scriptural forethought on part of the 
parents. This point is worthy of the most sacred 
and careful thought, the more so, because eminent 
scientists, for years, have given the most scrutiniz- 
ing study to the improvement of species in the veg- 
etable and animal kingdoms. Still more so, be- 
cause the human species so far outranks and so in- 
finitely outvalues all species in those kingdoms. 

Eugenics includes as its most important factor 
that insoluble mystery named 

Heredity. 

Its methods are not known, but as a fact, it is 



8G 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



known in the "transmission of the physical and psy- 
chical qualities of parents to their offspring." 

The supremacy of mind over matter is a fact 
manifest in heredity. But how this supremacy is 
maintained is not known. Mr. Huxley confesses : 
"The problem of the connection of body and soul 
is as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the 
prehistoric ages." And Professor Tyndal allows 
that "the passage from the physics of the brain to 
the corresponding facts of consciousness is un- 
thinkable." That qualities of mind and of body are 
transmitted from progenitor to posterity, has long 
been a well established scientific fact. That thought 
is a strong factor herein, is evident. Especially is 
this manifest in the maternal relation. 

It is said in the city of Florence an Italian woman 
of potenial motherhood sat day after day and 
week after week admiring the beautiful tracing and 
the magnificent frescoes being executed by great art- 
ists upon the interior of a cathedral. And in due time 
she became mother of the immortal sculptor and 
painter Michelangelo [Anglicized into Michael An- 
gelo]. 

Her thought and emotions of the beautiful were 
transmitted. 

History states that the mother of Napoleon, be- 
fore his birth, visited the battlefields, studied mili- 
tary tactics, reviewed troops, and experienced with 
her husband the life of a soldier. Her military 
thought and experience gave character to her son. 
To verify both of these events, consult "Law of 
Mentalism," p. 45. 

Criminal qualities are likewise transmitted from 
parent to posterity. 

"The mother of President Garfield's assassin. 
Guitteau, unsuccessfully attempted to produce an 



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87 



abortion by taking drugs." . . . "The child was 
stamped with the disposition to murder before he 
ever saw the light of day" (The Way of God in 
Marriage, p. 139). 

'The mother of little Jesse Pomeroy used to sit 
at her work and watch her husband, who was a 
butcher, kill cattle, sheep and hogs, while she car- 
ried little Jesse under her heart. The natural re- 
sult was a human monster who, when twelve years 
of age, had killed some five or six children; and at 
the age of thirteen was sent to the state peniten- 
tiary for life. The prisoners felt sorry for the boy, 
and gained permission from the warden to allow the 
child to have a pet kitten in his cell part of the 
time. But the very first night he had the kitten 
with him in his cell, he killed it. When asked by the 
warden why he did so, he replied, T don't know; I 
just can't help it.' He was born a murderer, the dis- 
position being formed before his birth" (Way of God 
in Marriage, p. 144). 

"A woman of criminal tendencies, who died in 
1827, had given birth to several children, all of 
whom inherited her criminal traits. By following 
the records of her offspring from generation to gen- 
eration, it has been found that, up to May, 1902, no 
less than seven hundred of them had been convicted 
of criminal offenses, and that thirty-seven had been 
executed for committing murder. The offspring of 
this one woman had, up to that date, cost the govern- 
ment about three million dollars for court trials and 
executions. 

"And all this crime with costs resulted from one 
woman's thoughts" [multiplied in her offspring] ! ! 
(Law of Mentalism, p. 134). 

"Dr. E. Harris observes concerning 'Margaret, 
the mother of criminals,' and her offspring, that 



88 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



'The county records show that two hundred of her 
descendants were criminals. In one generation of 
her unhappy line there were twenty children, of 
whom seventeen lived to maturity. Nine served 
terms aggregating fifty years in state prisons, for 
high crimes; and all the others were frequent in- 
mates of jails and almshouses. It is said of the six 
hundred and twenty-three descendants of this out- 
cast girl, two hundred committed crimes which 
brought them upon the court records; and most 
of the others were idiots, drunkards, lunatics, pau- 
pers, or prostitutes. The cost to the county, of this 
race of criminals and paupers, is estimated at one 
hundred thousand dollars'" (D. R. Miller, D. D., 
"Criminal Classes, Causes and Cures," p. 131). 

I must add one more instance, that of transmitted 
skepticism : "Some years since, a minister of the 
gospel, who swayed audiences with his eloquence, 
preached love, purity and the Golden Rule, while 
his home life was almost unendurable to the rest of 
his household. He was tyrannical and overbearing 
to such a degree that his wife became exceedingly 
skeptical. At one time, during the gestation 
period, the husband seemed worse than ever; and 
the poor wife had about concluded that there was 
no reality to Christianity, and almost doubted the 
existence of God. And as a result she gave to the 
world a child, although endowed with many ex- 
cellent and superior qualities, one possessed of un- 
usual oratory and a great heart, yet one of the most 
pronounced skeptics of modern years, Robert G. 
Ingersoll. And who, do you think, was to blame 
for that spirit of skepticism? I answer without 
hesitation, that husband and father" (Way of God 
in Marriage, p. 141). 

In like manner high moral and religious charac- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



89 



ter is transmitted: "For about two hundred years 
1,400 descendants of President Jonathan Edwards 
have been traced. A large per cent, of each genera- 
tion have filled prominent positions as lawyers, 
physicians, teachers, ministers, reformers, authors, 
soldiers, public officials and captains of industry" 
(The Light, p. 50, September, 1911). 

Jonathan Edwards' father was a minister; his 
mother, the daughter of one. Among their offspring 
are counted "over three hundred college graduates ; 
over one hundred college professors; one hundred 
ministers, missionaries and theological professors ; 
one hundred lawyers, thirty judges; sixty physi- 
cians and sixty authors.'' 

The start and growth of offspring will always be 
according to the psychic and moral qualities in the 
parents and according to environment. And by 
parents here is meant present and remote progeni- 
tors; for it is known that ancestral qualities lie dor- 
mant during one or more generations, and then ap- 
pear again. 

That prince among horticulturists, Luther Bur- 
bank, by obeying the laws of heredity in plants and 
fruits has produced improvements bordering upon 
the miraculous. 

Celebrated scientists and eminent stock farmers 
in Europe and America have made like improve- 
ments in horses, cattle, poultry, etc. "Thorough- 
breds" and all other high class animals are regis- 
tered on their pedigree and pure ancestry. 

A noted dog-fancier was enthusiastically dilating 
upon his canine achievements, to his guest, a pro- 
found student in eugenics, and spreading out a chart 
he continued, "Now, this is the 'Duke of Argyle'; 
this one the 'Duke of Wellington'; this one 'Glad- 
stone'; this 'Lord Chesterfield,'" and so on to 



90 



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the end of the list. "Now, I have to show a pedi- 
gree and a clear ancestry for five generations back, 
before I can have them registered/' And, with a 
look of supreme satisfaction, he continued, "And 
my dogs are all registered." 

His guest observes, "Now, all the time that man 
was talking, I was thinking, not of what he was 
saying, but of his two little still-born babes which 
had been laid sorrowfully out of sight. Plenty of 
dogs, but not a child in the home. I thought, 'race- 
suicide, — but dog-multiplication.' And I could not 
refrain from saying, 'Brother, don't you think that if 
good men gave as much consideration to the pro- 
creation of human souls, as they do to the lower 
orders of life, that there would be fewer nails driven 
i the little white coffins?' 'Oh, I suppose so,' was his 
evasive reply" (The Way of God in Marriage, 
p. 137). 

That evasive reply indicates the criminal indif- 
ference to the natural laws of parenthood and the 
welfare of human offspring. And this truly almost 
universal indifference should stir and fire every friend 
of the race with a feeling of the tremendous re- 
sponsibility involved. And the general lack of early 
and later childhood instruction as to the lofty mis- 
sion and the sacred trust of human life, including 
the end and sphere of the overruling sexual powers, 
becomes now a menace to the public good and to 
the perpetuity of the state. On the design of the 
sexual functions, the words of President Mark Hop- 
kins apply with force: "No man has a right to use 
anything except for the end for which it was given" 
(Ethics, p. 160). 

This brings us to consider the most important 
question of personal vitality. The life-germ, or 
power for parenthood, has two functions: (1) the 



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91 



mental and physical perfecting of the individual, 
and (2) the perpetuation of the race. 

Its presence and circulation in the blood gives 
fatness of bone, strength of tissue, fulness of 
muscle, force of mind, and spring of movement. 

And any diminution of this power of parenthood 
is a diminution of vitality. And an impartation of 
this power, by both sexes, to extend the race, is so 
far a mutual parting with life in order to start an- 
other life. This scientific truth is proved by the 
fact that excesses here undermine the health of tres- 
passers. 

And the false notion that the communication of 
this life-power is essential to health, is the claim 
of lust instead of learning. This false notion is 
meeting merited, although belated, rebuke in the 
light of later learning and higher ideals on part of 
the medical profession. 

Seventy-five honored physicians of New York 
City have declared: "In view of the widespread 
suffering, physical disease, deplorable hereditary 
results and moral deterioration inseparable from 
unchaste living, the undersigned members of the 
medical profession of New York and vicinity unite 
in declaring that chastity, a pure continent life for 
both sexes, is consonant with the best conditions 
of mental, moral and physical health." From sixty 
physicians in Philadelphia I have a similar state- 
ment" (M. E. Teats' Way of God in Marriage, p. 87). 

Notice : "A pure continent life for both sexes is 
consonant with the best conditions of mental, moral 
and physical health." This would abolish and ex- 
clude forever the unnatural and most harmful prac- 
tice of incontinence during the periods of gestation 
and lactation. 

I say "unnatural practice of incontinence during 



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gestation," for among the many animal orders 
lower than man, the strictest continence is observed 
instinctively. And "among primitive people, the 
'unnatural practice' is said to be unknown" (Dr. 
Bayer). 

I heard the world renowned missionary, Rev. 
William Taylor, afterwards Methodist Episcopal 
Bishop of Africa, say that when in Africa he knew 
of a tribe with ideals of marital purity so high that 
if a man was known to break the law of continence 
during his wife's period of gestation, they would 
cut him into pieces, and feed him to the fishes. 

It is amazing beyond measure that any man civil- 
ized, not to say a Christian, should so debase him- 
self by lust as to disregard this natural law of con- 
tinence in the expectant mother. 

From the foregoing accounts of plant and animal 
improvement in race-culture, it is clear that those 
improvements were made at the start of life. And 
the chief factors in the problem have been selection, 
sustentation and association. 

1. Selection implies the choice of partners sexu- 
ally mated to produce strong offspring. 

2. Sustentation requires the exclusion of harm- 
ful foods and a proper supply of nutritious ele- 
ments. 

3. And association denotes companionship favor- 
able to amiable disposition. 

These three principles are carefully observed in 
improving the lower orders of animal life, but have 
been strangely ignored in the human species. In 
consequence domestic discord, divorce, and disin- 
tegration of the religious and civil community 
ensue. 

A foolish prudery concerning the laws of life 
and the sacredness of sex has withheld wholesome 



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93 



instruction from the children and youth, and often 
allowed ignorance and lust to shape their tender 
years, sapping health and multiplying human de- 
generates. 

The insidious nature of lewd thought and the 
infectious character of lustful indulgence victimiz- 
ing even little children, is not suspected. Many of 
them are born licentious in consequence of marital 
incontinence of their parents during gestation. 

Here is a case of early childhood contamination : 
I am creditably informed of a rural community of 
about two hundred children and young people 
where but one — a girl — was free from sexual vice. 
And the defilement of that community was begun 
by an impure young woman seducing a little boy of 
five years! 

The noted educator of Massachusetts, Horace 
Mann, visited a school of about two hundred boys, 
and he believed that every boy was contaminated 
with this frightful leprosy! 

"And yet in my whole life," said he, "I have never 
heard a word of caution uttered warning the young 
against the contamination of this foul disease. In 
all the sermons I have ever heard, I have never 
known an allusion to be made to this great evil." 

"What an indictment! When no other class of sins 
receives such continuous and woeful condemnation, 
from Genesis to Revelation!" (B. H. Mix). 

Mr. Mann continues: "When I was ten years old 
my father sent me to a famous academy in Massa- 
chusetts, famous especially for its high-toned ortho- 
doxy, on the presumption that I should be subject 
to the highest and best religious influences ; but I 
never heard a word from any of our teachers that 
tended to elevate our characters and save us from 
moral destruction. The wonder is that any of us 



94 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



escaped destruction" (Miss Belle H. Mix, in Van- 
guard). 

Because of the baneful, if not criminal, silence on 
this vital subject, on part of parents, the gospel 
ministry, educators in school and university, legisla- 
tors, the medical profession and the public press, 
sexual impurity "has a frightful prevalence in our 
land" (Bishop Thomas M. Clark of Rhode Island). 

"In a city of 12,000 population, a well known phy- 
sician of large practice, who thoroughly knew the 
people, declared there was scarcely a pure young 
man in the city. He had in possession, at the time, 
the names of sixty young men, many of them at the 
very top of society and business, and, I am ashamed 
to say it, not a few of them members of the church, 
whom he knew professionally to be guilty of the low ' 
vice." 

We have seen above that heredity plays a prom- 
inent part in life's drama. Prenatal life has engaged 
the profoundest thought of biologists from the time 
of Hippocrates [400 B. C] till now. Its origin 
and method of procedure have eluded the keenest 
test by microscope and chemistry. 

Any general agreement has not been reached. 
Different theories have been adopted, to be modi- 
fied, or set aside entirely by subsequent investiga- 
tion. 

Naegeli called the physical basis of life idioplasm 
— true living substance. Weismann changed it to 
germ-plasm. He was followed by Minot, saying: 
"Germ-plasm is all wrong." And so on through 
Nusbaum, Gruber, Haberlandt, Korscheldt, Hertwig, 
Roux, Virchow, Darwin, Brooks, Galton and Tyndal 
and others. All verifying the statement of Mr. Charles 
Darwin : "The laws of inheritance are quite unknown" 
(Origin of Species, p. 19). 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



95 



But the immovable fact of inheritance, or hered- 
ity stands forth clear as the meridian sun. The 
great susceptibility of matter to mind is manifest 
everywhere. Life and mind organize and mold 
matter, so that one's body and its movements ex- 
press his mental qualities. This is apparent to 
every close observer. ? 

In fact, all creation is the expression of Gods 
thought: "The heavens declare [speak forth] the 
glory of God" (Psa. 19:1); "The heavens declare 
His righteousness" (Psa. 97:6); "That which may 
be known of God— the invisible things are clearly 
seen, being understood by the things that are made, 
even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they 
are without excuse" (Rom. 1:19, 20). 

Were we sufficiently spiritual, sensitive to nature, 
and able to apprehend the moral signficance of cre- 
ation, we should find it everywhere revealing God. 
But through the fall in Eden man lost the ability to 
read the skies. Only as influenced by the Holy 
Spirit do men see creation to be the expression of 
God's mind. 

That our atmosphere is vibrant with human 
thought, was not suspected before Marconi found a 
way to read it. And how the wireless telegraphy 
suggests the idea that all creation is thought-re- 
vealing. 

President Hitchcock says : "The discoveries of 
modern science show us that there is a literal sense 
in which the material creation receives from all our 
words and actions an impression that can never be 
effaced" (Gregory, Christian Ethics, p. 154). 

Professor Babbage declares "The air is one vast 
library on whose pages are forever written all that 
man has ever said, or woman whispered." . . 
"Could man command the mathematics of superior 



96 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



mind, every particle of air thus set in motion could 
be traced through all its changes, with as much 
precision as the astronomer can point out the path 
of the heavenly bodies" (Gregory, Christian Eth- 
ics, p. 155). 

Strictly speaking, individual and isolated life is 
scientifically impossible. 

This sealed domain of thought in matter and 
mind was open to Jesus : "And Jesus knew their 
thoughts" (Matt. 12:25); "He knowing their 
thoughts (Luke 11:17) needed not that any should 
testify of man, for He knew what is in man" (John 
2:25). 

A fair interpretation suggests this universal 
thought-reading to become general when the full 
light of the gospel age shall have been entered : 
"For nothing is secret that shall not be made mani- 
fest; neither anything hid that shall not be known 
and come abroad" (Luke 8:17). 

The terms of this text forbid its reference to the 
revelations of the general judgment day. To "be 
known and come abroad" must refer to a coming 
civilization. 

External nature being so sensitive to thought 
and feeling, what must be the influence of maternal 
thought and feeling upon internal nature? How 
susceptible to impressions of maternal thought and 
feeling is embryonic life ! The plate in the camera 
of the photographer is not more sensitive to the 
light, than is the forming infant to maternal im- 
pressions. 

Diseased Life-Germ. 

We have seen how maternal thought and feeling 
frame unborn infant life and shape moral character. 

But the life-germ itself becomes diseased. Life- 
cells convey to coming generations the trend and 



CHRIST. IN ETHICS 



97 



virus of diseases contracted in violating the animal 
appetites. On the indissoluble union between mor- 
als and the appetites, our Lord admonishes: ''Take 
heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be 
overcharged [dulled, stupefied] with surfeiting 
[over-eating] and drunkenness [carousing, intoxi- 
cation] and the cares of this life" (Luke 21:34). 

The facts of science prove gluttony, licentious- 
ness, alcoholism and narcotism to be transmissible. 

Alcohol poisons the blood, deadens the nerves, 
and hardens the brain. "The stomach of one dying 
of delirium tremens is black with putrefaction." 

Life insurance tables show the mortality of liq- 
uor-users to be 500 per cent, greater than that of 
abstainers. 

Its greatest curse comes in heredity. "Of all the 
appetites the inherited appetite for drunkenness is 
the most direful." The life-germ is alcoholized. 
And, when it has developed into an organism, every 
tissue in every bone, muscle and nerve is alcohol- 
ized, craves alcohol, and at the touch of alcohol 
fires into fury for open indulgence. Only the vic- 
tim knows the base, bitter thraldom. 

Narcotism is quite similar to this. The opium 
habit and the tobacco habit stand alike for deterio- 
ration, disease, and death. The latter being the 
more common in western civilization, is specially 
considered here. 

Dr. Pidduck, sixteen years St. Giles* Dispensary, 
declares: "Tobacco poisons the blood, and that 
leeches instantly drop off dead from the bodies of 
smokers, as soon as they begin to draw blood." 

"Chemists, botanists, and physicians unite in 
pronouncing tobacco one of the most deadly pois- 
ons known" (Dr. J. H. Kellog). 

"One grain of nicotine instantly kills a mastiff" 



98 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



(Dr. King). It will destroy human life, in two to 
five minutes. "Oil of tobacco" on the point of a 
needle puncturing a bird kills it immediately. "One 
drop on the tongue of a cat caused death in two 
minutes." 

"Tobacco smoke: A. Vogel and Reischauer find it 
to contain (1) sulphuretted hydrogen, 'deadly poi- 
son' (2) hydrocyanic acid; prussic acid, a 'most 
fatal poison'" (Silliman Chem., p. 487). "A single 
drop on the tongue of a large dog produced instant 
death." 

Eminent authors agree that in striking at the 
vital centres of the animal life, tobacco particularly 
deadens the moral sense. 

Like alcoholism, narcotism poisons, in heredity, the 
physical basis of life — the power for parenthood. 
Much of the present puny, devitalized, and nervous 
condition of American children is traceable to the pa- 
ternal "tobacco habit." The London Lancet, of high- 
est medical authority, declares : "In no instance is the 
sin of the father more strikingly visited upon his chil- 
dren than the sin of tobacco smoking." 

Dr. Richards, of high British authority, says: "I 
do not hesitate to say that if a community of both 
sexes whose progenitors were finely formed and pow- 
erful, were to be trained to the early practice of smok- 
ing and if marriage were confined to the smokers, an 
inferior race of men and women would be reared up." 

A thorough study of this question as to present ef- 
fects on body and mind and of transmitted influences 
on posterity, will justify the statement of Dr. John 
Cowan: "No two habits so blast and deform the soul 
of man, made in God's own image, as do alcohol and 
tobacco; and it is useless for a man to try and live 
a healthy and continent life, who in the remotest way, 
continues in their use." 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



99 



It is a menace to the nation. In the late Spanish- 
American war, seventy-five per cent, of enlisting men 
were rejected because of the "tobacco heart." No more 
deceiving, debasing, dismantling force jeopardizes the 
race than the transmitted devitalizing workings of the 
"tobacco habit." Every pure woman and every man 
who stands for a strong manhood and a clean pos- 
terity should demand its banishment from society. Let 
the twin-evils of rum and tobacco go down in endless 
infamy together. 

Child Training. 
Having been well born hails the future. It is the 
promise of increasing good. It is the foundation of a 
right life. It is a cause and conservator of clean char- 
acter. 

From the foregoing facts on heredity and prenatal 
impressions, it would seem that everything depends 
on how we are born. This may not be exclusively true, 
but the statement swells with truth. 

Eugenics and heredity consider especially the life- 
factors of the past and the present. They index the 
past. Single catch-words of feature and of look en- 
large into volumes of gone secret thought and un- 
recorded deeds of base desire, when exposed to the 
latest searchlight of biological research. 

But this is not all. Eugenics and heredity forecast 
the future. They also indicate lines of instruction to 
be pursued in order to counteract hereditary evil and 
encourage inborn good. 

It is fundamental in child training that thought and 
feeling affect the blood. Everyone sees this blushed 
in crimson or blanched on cheek of rage. And thought- 
affected blood forms tissue, and tissue builds bone and 
flesh, making the body an expression of the mind. I 
recall a man of nearly fifty years ago whose wriggling, 



100 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



irascible gait always reminded me of the movements 
of a scorpion — the embodiment of anger. 

That thought and feeling carve feature and form, 
is a vital truth that should be among the first things 
taught the infant. At a very tender age feelings are 
known as pleasing and painful. A mirror will show 
the infant their respective physical settings in the face. 
These settings become permanent. This fact is funda- 
mental in science : "The soul is the image of the spirit, 
and makes the body the image of itself" (Delitzsch- 
Biblical Psychology, p. 272). 

I shall never forget Daniel , of sixty-five years 

ago, whose face was always set ready for a "big cry," 
although a man of mature years. It came about in this 
way: When Daniel was yet a little child, his parents 
penned him on the porch while they hoed corn nearby. 
Whenever they came near the house, his mother would 
look and listen for Daniel; and, hearing his crying, 
which was constant, her mother-heart would exclaim, 
"Der Daniel heilt alsnoch" (Daniel cries still), and she 
would hoe back again with her husband to the distant 
side of the field. Returning always found Daniel cry- 
ing* getting in answer only the mother's wail, "Der 
Daniel heilt alsnoch." 

Little Daniel's unceasing crying carved in his face 
indelibly the lines of grief. Just so anger, lust, re- 
venge, etc., get their permanent facial setting. 

W T ere children informed of this inexorable law of 
life, how general would be their rejecting of the 
"naughty" and accepting of the good, the true, and the 
beautiful ! 

What shall be taught, and when ? are foremost ques- 
tions. The Sacred Scriptures give the needed infor- 
mation. 

Timothy was a young man of exceptionally pure 
character. Paul declared he had none else like him 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 101 



(Phil. 2:20-22). He had been well born. His in- 
comparable character was found first in the grand- 
mother, Lois, and the mother, Eunice" (2 Tim. 1:5). 

In addition to this, Timothy was scientifically 
trained. Right knowledge was rightly given, adapted 
to capacity. The Divine record is: "From a child 
[brephos, infant, unborn, or just born — Gr.] thou hast 
known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make 
thee wise unto salvation through faith, which is in 
Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 3:15). 

And this was the ancient Jewish custom, as indicated 
in Isa. 28:9, 10: "Whom shall ye teach knowledge? 
And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? 
Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from 
the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept 
upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a 
little and there a little." 

The Divine precept to teach eternal truths to the 
child from its birth, is not invalidated by the fact of 
great differences in moral and mental susceptibility in 
children. Some waken to moral consciousness with the 
dawn of reason, while others seem insensible to spirit- 
ual influences for many months or even some years. 
But such are the exception, and may be, in part, ac- 
counted for by the weakness of the spiritual influences 
of environment. 

Jeremiah was a case of connate spiritual life (Jer. 
1:5-10). And the record of his life shows no break. 
Furthermore, John Baptist was "filled with the Holy 
Ghost, even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1 :15). 

Infantile inquiries concerning God and human life 
are often inscrutable to the philosopher. This is a 
matter of common observation. And it is on account 
of the close union between the infant and the Eternal 
Spirit. 

Of this union some always retain a clear recollection. 



102 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



Bishop William Taylor, of Africa, tells of his infantile 
communion with God and how he lost it. 

Personally I have a very clear recollection of infant- 
ile fellowship with God. While yet in my kilts I 
played religious meeting with my next elder brother 
in papa's fence-corner, which we had roofed with clap- 
boards, thus forming our little three-cornered church 
with largest side all open. Sacred place it was. God's 
presence made it holy. A heavenly light seemed to 
fill my heart and the place. 

One day especially my heart felt very warm toward 
God. It seemed really hot. And I felt a strong up- 
ward pull, as though some one in the sky was pulling 
on my heart. Blissful times, those! No fact in the 
past seventy years stands out clearer in memory. 

0 worlds ! that those experiences had never been 
forfeited ! 

A few years later I lost all by disobeying my mother. 
Then I feared to go out of doors after dark. And I 
dreaded going upstairs to bed in the dark. 

Not until twenty years of age when I was power- 
fully converted, did I again feel that heavenly peace 
and love. But the joys of the new-birth were recog- 
mzed as the experience of inner light and love I had 
enjoyed in my infancy. 

A clear case of infant fellowship with God is that 
of Helen Burt. At about two-and-a-half years of age 
she obtained, lived and testified a pure heart. Later 
on, under very trying and protracted provocation she 
gave way to impatience, and ran to her mother with 
gushing tears, exclaiming, "0 mama, mama, I lost my 
pure heart!" I could fill pages with most convincing 
testimony in this case, which occurred in my own pas- 
torate. 

1 know of another case similar to this. A grand- 
child of about two years came running to grandmother, 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



103 



shouting: "Bamma, I know sancti' " — grandma, I know 
sanctification. "What is it, dear?" "Why, Dod reach 
down His hand in my heart, and take something out, 
like a lump of dirt, and throw it away." 

The grandmother had lived entire sanctification (1 
Thess. 5:23, 24). The little child imbibed the light, 
and later gave it verbal form. For simplicity and ac- 
curacy of definition, what theologian will better the 
illustration? 

Truly, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings 
hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, 
that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger" 
(Psa. 8:2). . . . "Children crying in the temple. 
'Hosanna to the Son of David!' Jesus saith . . . 
'Yea, have ye never read, out of the mouths of babes 
and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" (Matt. 
21:15,16). 

Infant Christianity of this sort is rare, because ac- 
cepting the gospel atonement for infants is rare. Just 
as Christ Jesus is at once both complete atonement for 
the sinner and the redeemed sinner's example for holy 
living, so is He the complete atonement for the infant 
and the example for the redeemed infant. Our Lord's 
infancy as well as His manhood was truly the pattern 
for the redeemed race. 

Rightly M. de Presseuse declares: "Christ did more 
than simply assume human nature. He became the 
head of a new humanity, and its representative before 
God" (Early Years of Christianity, p. 273). As this 
head of a new humanity, He was infant as well as 
adult; and he must be infant in order to be adult. 

Likewise Dr. F. Godet: "Jesus created a holy hu- 
manity in His person, and the Spirit has the task and 
power to reproduce in us this new humanity" (Com- 
ment on John 17:19). This "holy humanity" (new 
humanity) , in the "person of Jesus," was in His person 



104 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



as infant as well as adult — was infant in order to be 
adult. 

Unbelief — stark unbelief, prevents the concrete real- 
ization of this new Christ-race in both its adulthood 
and its infancy. 

God's provision "unto all the fulness of God" (Eph. 
3:19), being "strengthened with all might, according 
to His glorious power" (Col. 1:11), and "working in 
you that which is well pleasing in His sight through 
Jesus Christ" (Heb. 13:21), is regarded as too high 
a standard; so, instead of this, men would accept the 
Divine provision only to a degree — approximately. 
Similar doing in domestic life would regard God's law 
of water boiling at 212 degrees Fahrenheit as too high 
a standard, and would heat water to a degree only — 
approximately, say 100 degrees in hope of cooking a 
meal ! 

And if the boiling point for water varied at different 
times, with constant changing in other physical laws, 
life would be impossible. Throughout the domain of 
nature physical law is unalterably fixed. And this sym- 
bolizes moral law as invariably fixed. Holy Scripture 
abounds with illustrations: Cosmical (Jer. 31:35, 36) ; 
terrene (Gal. 6:7, 8). 

Scientifically exact is our Lord's statement: "If ye 
abide in me, and my words [laws] abide in you; ask 
what ye will and it shall be done unto you" (John 
15:7). Accordingly, "Hold fast the form [accurate 
outline] of sound words ... in faith and love, 
which is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 1:13). 

The unnatural, unreasonable, destructive habit of 
preferring a part to the whole, "the substitution of an 
inferior good for the highest good, the world for God, 
is at the root of immorality" (Fisher, Theistic and 
Christian Belief, p. 357), and incurs the Divine pen- 
alty : "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 105 



against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men 
who hold down [hinder] the truth in unrighteousness" 
(Rom. 1:18). 

The Bible is not a book of reference, as some would 
use it, but God's law of absolute authority. By it we 
shall be judged: "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth 
not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word 
that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the 
last day" (John 12:48). According to it, we shall be 
punished: "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from 
heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking 
vengeance on them that know not God and that obey 
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall 
be punished with everlasting destruction from the pres- 
ence of the Lord and from the glory of His power" 
(2 Thess. 1:8-9). 

These Scriptures of future retribution prove that the 
Divine provision and performance of gospel grace for 
both adult and infant, must be accepted at full value. 

Infant Grace Applied. 

This illustration, true to life, shows how the infant 
comes to see its personal need, and how it may get 
that need supplied: 

"Little Mamie of two years, excited with anger, feels 
very unhappy and cries out in tears. At the proper 
moment her mother breaks in, 'My poor Mamie ! Ma- 
ma feels sorry for dear Mamie! Mama's heart used 
to feel that same hurt. And Mama looked to Jesus, 
and took Him to cure that hurt in the heart; and He 
took it all away and keeps Mama's heart so pure and 
full of love. And He will now do the same for my 
own dear Mamie! Blessed Jesus, how I love him!' " 

A known instance is the following: "Among the first 
words she [Bessie Sherman Ashton] learned were 
words of prayer and praise. When three and a half 



106 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



years old she knew enough to give her heart to Jesus. 
She said, 'Mama, Jesus, has taken the naughty out, and 
put the happy in/ And Ernest is not yet two years 
old, but he often leads the little prayer meetings. He 
will say, 'Come, Egie, pay' — pray" (Mrs. Anna S. Os- 
born in Vanguard, 1907). 

The moral state of infants in the gospel dispensa- 
tion is not generally understood. In fact, it is very 
much misunderstood. That Adam's sin entailed upon 
his offspring spiritual death and consequent Divine 
condemnation has been generally allowed; but that 
Christ "hath put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" 
(Heb. 9:26), freeing the race from all disadvantage 
from Adam's sin, is not generally apprehended. 

The truth on this point is well expressed by the 
eminent polemic of the Wesleyan Reformation, the 
Rev. John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley: "Adam 
brought a general condemnation and a universal 
seed of death upon all infants ; so Christ brings upon 
them a general justification and a universal seed of 
life" (Fletcher's Works, Vol. I., p. 284). 

The Apostle Paul shows not only a moral equiva- 
lent in the atonement for man's loss by the fall, but 
he declares the abounding pre-eminence of Christ 
over Adam: "Not as the offense, so, also is the free 
gift. For if through offense of one [Adam] many be 
dead, much mor - the grace of God and the gift by 
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath 
abounded unto many" (Rom. 5:15). "Therefore as 
by the offense of one [Adam] judgment came upon 
all men to condemnation ; even so by the righteous- 
ness of one [Christ] the free gift came upon all men 
unto justification of life" (Rob. 5:18). 

So all infants are born in a two-fold moral state — 
having a bent toward sin and a "justification unto 
life," securing Divine favor (Mark 10:14). 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 107 



Generally this bent toward sin is nourished by in- 
fluences and training actually sinful, causing choice 
of sin at the age of accountability, instead of nourish- 
ing the "justification unto life" by godly influences 
and training, resulting in choice of righteousness at 
the age of accountability. And God has made saving 
faith easy by the utter helplessness of infancy, com- 
pelling trust in the mother. Thus the faith-faculty 
is first, and designed to be foremost throughout 
life: "The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17; 
Gal. 3:11). 

Instruction in Youth. 

The early part of youth — from four to twelve 
years of age — is a period of immense interests. If 
I mistake not, this is the most important period in 
human life. Here principles are rooted in person- 
ality that form character for all time. 

Fundamental and first in order are the laws of 
self-preservation and of self-development. This is 
the only safeguard against the early perversion of 
life-forces. 

Best authorities on juvenile reform declare that 
"seventy-five per cent, of all children have a vicious 
knowledge of sex matters before they are ten years 

old." "One five-year-old boy in Home had a 

knowledge of sex matters incredibly vile, and he was 
teaching every other child with whom he came in 
contact" (The Light, p. 70, January, 1910). 

On the other hand, early curiosity makes this 
teaching the laws of life a necessity. A "child of 
two-and-a-half years lived in the country, and was 
bound to see creation all about him. His mother, 
ignorant on these subjects, had made one law to 
herself, namely, that she would never tell that boy 
a lie, whatever question he might ask. 

"One day this child was playing with his pet cat 



108 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



. . . And he was pulling that cat about; and his 
mother said, 'Don't do that; you will hurt Velvet- 
ena. Some day soon I will tell you the loveliest 
story you ever heard in all your life' ... A 
few days afterwards he came running to his mother, 
pulled her by the hand, and said, 'Mother, . . . 
Look what I have got in my blue cupboard ! How 
did they get there? Dear little baby kittens!' And 
the mother sat down on the ground and took the 
little boy in her arms, and said, 'Now I will tell 
you that beautiful story that I promised you some 
days ago. Do you remember when you were pull- 
ing Velvetena, and mother told you not to hurt 
her?' 'Ah! but Velvetena has grown so very 
thin; she must be very hungry' . . . The mother 
went on to say: 'Do you know, dear, the little 
birds and all the beautiful animals that God has 
made were once tiny, tiny seeds like the seeds in 
the flowers in your garden? . . . God hides the 
seeds away in a little warm, comfortable nest in- 
side mother's body, and they grow, and grow ; and 
mother thinks about them and loves them, and 
wonders what they will be like when they have 
grown big enough to come into mother's arms, and 
let her show everybody what a beautiful thing God 
has made for her.' And the boy looked at the kit- 
tens, then at the cat, and then at his mother, and 
said, 'Oh, how lovely ! Was I once part of yoaf 
(The Light, January, 1908, p. 31). 

Another mother told her little daughter the be- 
ginning of life in plants and animals, and how God 
had given her a warm nest under mama's heart 
until she grew strong enough, when by mama's 
severe suffering a short time she was brought forth 
a sweet baby into mama's arms. 

Deeply moved by this recital, the child threw her 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 109 



arms about her mother's neck, exclaiming, "Dear 
mama, / do love you so! — more than ever, because 
you did so much for me." 

Nothing else can, like this, unite child and par- 
ent in tender love and confidence, affording a strong 
bond in family government. 

But on the other hand, when the child's inquiry 
how life begins is met by the rebuff, "Hush ! you 
must not talk about such things," causing in the 
child a feeling of shame, secrecy, if not guilt, and 
perhaps a greater curiosity to be satisfied by lewd 
lips later on. Such repulse from parental con- 
fidence enters a bar to filial trust and to family gov- 
ernment. 

What can be done to impress parents with the 
unspeakable importance of this matter, and their 
tremendous responsibility in the case? The Bishop 
of London says : "I am convinced that the uplifting 
of the morality of our people lies, above all and 
everything else, in educating the children rationally 
and morally. I believe that more evil has been 
done by the squeamishness of parents who are 
afraid to instruct their children in the vital facts 
of life than by all the other agencies of life put 
together." 

Judge B. Lindsey, of juvenile court fame, Den- 
ver, Colorado, declares with emphasis: "I am con- 
vinced that this whole moral question among chil- 
dren is by far the most important problem that con- 
cerns the preservation of the American home. If 
the nation decay, as decay it must if the home is 
undermined, it is because mothers and fathers have 
proved false ; it is because mothers and fathers are 
traitors to childhood's sacred cause. These are 
strong words, truly, but I have facts from actual 
experience upon which to base them." 



110 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



Now that "mothers and fathers have proved 
false," and are "traitors to childhood's sacred 
cause," what shall be said of the worldly church 
as the "temple of God" (1 Cor. 3:16), and the "light 
of the world" (Matt. 5 :14) ; and what of its man- 
pleasing ministry as "watchmen" safeguarding the 
public welfare (Ezek. 33:7, 8), and as "Shepherds 
to feed the flock of God" (1 Peter 5:2)? 

The general silence and manifest indifference 
would seem utterly impossible in the face of the 
almost universal demoralization regarding sex and 
in the face of the appalling disclosures of vice and 
crime. Instance : 

1. The increasing crimes among children, against 
virtue and life itself, as the juvenile courts attest. 

Hon. E. T. Gerry, of New York City, after an 
investigation extending to various parts of the 
country, made the estimate that eighty-seven per 
cent, of the children between certain ages were 
addicted to an impure practice that is filling our 
institutions for the feeble-minded, our insane hos- 
pitals, and preparing both patrons and inmates of 
nouses of shame." 

Out of four hundred boys personally questioned 
by one city superintendent of schools only seven 
professed to be free from impure habits ! That is 
only one in fifty-seven ! 

Eminent authorities are united in the statement 
that "seventy-five per cent, of all children have 
vicious knowledge of sex matters before they are 
ten years of age." One degenerate girl of seven 
years was discovered demoralizing six little boys 
in the kindergarten ! "A single boy of fourteen 
years instructed every child in a large public school 
in Chicago, in vicious habits." 

A still more shocking "sexual degeneracy is 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 111 



where the father outrages his own child." Mrs. 
Amigh, superintendent, Training School for De- 
linquent Girls, Geneva, 111., ''finds that sixty out of 
her four hundred and eighty girls had their first 
experience in vice with their own father!" (The 
Light, January, 1910, pp. 70, 71). 

Deliberate murders are committed by little chil- 
dren: "Union, S. C, April 9, 1909— Fred Bell, six 
years old, is in jail here charged with murder. He 
shot and killed Ethel Thomas, aged three years, and 
then attempted to hide the body" (News-Bee, April 
9, 1909). 

A more appalling case : "October 12, 1904, Em- 
mett Robinson, three years old, of Nyack, N. Y., 
killed his baby sister, one month old, with a bronze 
statuette, on Saturday evening last, striking it six 
blows. The motive was jealousy. The child had 
been teased that he was no longer 'the baby pet' of 
the family." 

2. The appalling prevalence of sexual vice and 
crime among persons of mature years. Prenatal in- 
fluences cause the greater part. Ignorance and lust 
go hand in hand. 

(1) "Physicians declare self-abuse to be almost 
universal" . . . "Ninety to ninety-six per cent, 
of the males at some time in life, to some extent, 
practice this sin" (Prof. T. W. Shannon, Perfect 
Manhood, p. 61). "Medical authorities estimate 
that thirty-five per cent, of women at some time 
in life practice secret sin" (Perfect Manhood, 
p. 44). 

(2) There are in America over 400,000 "fallen 
women" in lust resorts. It requires about 75,000 
to 80,000 fresh recruits to supply the death-rate 
every year. That is, 6,666 every month ; 220 per 
day ; and about nine every hour ; or one innocent 



112 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



girl decoyed and robbed of virtue every seven 
minutes ! 

(3) "Startling! In Chicago, recently [1910] a 
twelve-year-old girl was rescued in a resort, and 
held for recognition at a police station. A simple 
announcement of the fact in a morning paper 
brought inquiries from five hundred parents whose 
daughters had recently disappeared!" (The Light, 
May, 1910, p. 18). 

The lack of self-knowledge respecting sex is the 
chief cause of this wholesale destruction of young 
women. 

Denslow Lewis, M. D., declares on thirty years 
of experience : "I have seen hundreds of cases 
where the daughters of our best families in differ- 
ent parts of our country have gone down to degra- 
dation because they were ignorant and confiding, 
and believed the words of their seducers." 

An inmate of the Florence Rescue Home, New 
York City, said to the matron [speaking for her 
comrades] : "We never had a chance to learn about 
ourselves before ; and we would have been better 
girls if we had been taught all about ourselves." 

This lack of self-knowledge regarding sex lies 
at the root of the sexual degradation of young men, 
with a few exceptional cases. It is the eminent Dr. 
Morrow's estimate, before the American Medical 
Association, "that there are four hundred and fifty 
thousand boys in our country who each year make 
the fatal plunge into the whirlpool of lust. That is 
1,250 every day, or 52 every hour! Almost one 
every minute!" 

The following fact will show the factor of ignor- 
ance in the problem of the 450,000 ruined boys: 

"Statistics gathered from a number of representa- 
tive colleges in the Middle States show that only 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 113 



one young man in twenty received from his parents 
any adequate instruction on these subjects before 
he left home" . . . "What must be the mental 
condition of the youth from the less thrifty fami- 
lies ?" (The Light, May, 1910, p. 38). 

A salutary testimony is that of the great Ameri- 
can educator, Horace Mann : "At college I was 
taught the motions of the heavenly bodies as if their 
keeping in their orbits depended upon my knowing 
them, while I was in profound ignorance of the 
laws of health of my own body. The rest of my 
life was, in consequence, one long battle with ex- 
hausted energies" (The Light, January, 1907, 
p. 16). 

3. Worse still are the cruel wrongs and the atro- 
cious crimes committed in wedlock. 

Marital purity is the exception. That the volun- 
tary exercise of the sexual function is limited to 
the production of offspring, is not yet the teaching, 
nor the practice of the generality of educators, phy- 
sicians and even clergymen — not to mention the 
people at large. 

For this desecration and perversion of the sacred 
powers of parenthood, the man is chiefly respon- 
sible. A husband's claim to exceptional preroga- 
tive over his wife is based on her supposed inferi- 
ority, contrary to Nature's law; for the animals 
observe the law of continence. It is also contrary 
to God's law: "The wife hath not power of her own 
body, but the husband; and likewise also the hus- 
band hath not power of his own body, but his 
wife" (1 Cor. 7:4). 

A wife's submission to her husband has its limit, 
"as unto the Lord" (Eph. 5:22), "as it is fit in 
the Lord (Col. 3:10). 

God's law for the sexual use of our bodies is 



114 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



explicit and absolute : ''Now the body is not for 
fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the 
body" . . . "What, know ye not that your body 
is the temple of the Holy Ghost in you, which ye 
have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye 
are bought with a price : therefore glorify God in 
your body and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 
Cor. 6:13, 19, 20). See Rom. 6:13, 19; 1 Peter 
1:15, 16. 

God repeatedly declared His absolute right to 
every faculty and function of the human personal- 
ity. I wondered for years why "foolish talking and 
jesting" were classed with "fornication and all un- 
cleanness." Instance : 

"Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved 
children ; and walk in love, even as Christ also loved 
you" . . . "But fornication and all uncleanness, 
or covetousness, let it not even be named among 
you, as becometh saints ; nor filthiness, nor foolish 
talking, or jesting, which are not befitting" (Eph. 
5:1-4) [R. V.] 

In what is their resemblance as the ground of 
this classification? 

My residence in India led to the solution of this 
question. Among the Hindus are men who are 
not given to "foolish talking" nor to "jesting," but 
are free to commit "fornication." 

I then saw that the Bible was given for the whole 
world as well as for the individual. I saw, too, that 
as "fornication and all uncleanness" were the per- 
verting of a physical function, just so were "fool- 
ish talking and jesting" the perverting of a mental 
function — a perversion, or bad use, all the same, 
only of a higher order. The motive, or aim, in both 
cases is the same — forbidden pleasure. Jesting vio- 
lates the foregoing Scriptures as really as forni- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 115 



cation does, by preferring self-gratification to "the 
glory of God" (1 Cor. 10 :31). And both are as really 
destructive of true godliness, hence their classifica- 
tion above. 

Startling Disclosures. 

1. A few detestable but incontrovertible facts 
must be given to show the enormity of marital 
wrongs inflicted upon thousands of innocent 
women. 

"A noted Eastern physician in a lecture before 
the St. Louis Young Men's Christian Association, 
recently stated that eighty per cent, of all diseases 
peculiar to married women were due to venereal 
diseases contracted from their husbands" (The Lib- 
erator, p. 23, August, 1908). 

"It is claimed by specialists in this field that at 
least sixty- five per cent, of the operations that wo- 
men are subjected to in the hospitals are the result 
of infection from their husbands" (Sexual Hygiene, 
p. 83). 

"We need not wonder at the number of youth- 
ful suicides and criminals, under the conditions 
that control in marriage, nor marvel that so many 
mere babes practice unmentionable vices. Lust 
gave them their life-trend at its very beginning, and 
deepened the dark work during the prenatal 
months. 

"The wife of a college professor recently said 
she was talking with a social acquaintance on 
purity, especially of the righteous law of contin-. 
ence during the prenatal period, when the other ex- 
claimed : "I don't know where you will find those 
willing to regard it !" . . . 

A man who meets many thousands of professing 



116 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



Christians in each twelve months, many of them 
ministers, says : "It seems exceedingly rare to find 
this truth (marital purity) understood or advo- 
cated." 

"A personal acquaintance of mine, an earnest 
Christian woman, a college graduate, married a 
minister of her church who was classed as a suc- 
cessful pastor and whom she believed to be as 
'good as gold.' Prior to her marriage she had not 
known an ill day; but from that event her health 
rapidly declined through the sickening abuse of her 
life-partner, until physical suffering and nervous 
prostration almost drove her insane." 

"I am acquainted with another case in which a 
beautiful young girl married a young man in her 
own social circle, that of culture and wealth. His 
abuse of her became so great that she would be 
seized with a nervous chill when she heard his step 
in the hall. His nature was so perverted by the 
demon of lust that he would come home from the 
office during the day, and with threats on his lips 
and a pistol in hand, compel submission to his 
debased desires." 

"It is high time that teachers of religion and mo- 
rality recognize more clearly the stupendous import- 
ance of the purity problem, especially as it relates to 
family life, which determines the character of social, 
municipal and national life" (Belle H. Mix, in Van- 
guard). 

The Rev. J. M. Pike, of long experience and wide 
observation in rescue work, and editor of The Way of 
Faith, has declared: "No one but those definitely at 
work among the impure can have any conception of 
the impurity of this age. It is not confined to the 
slums or houses of prostitution, but it seems to have 
become the besetting sin of those who profess the 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 117 



deeper lines of spirituality. I am amazed and con- 
founded at the revelations that have come to me. There 
is no question at all in my mind that the greatest 
hindrance to spiritual life . . . lies along this line." 

Other marital misdemeanors of deeper turpitude 
are withheld as too indecent for publication. In the 
face of known facts, the following words of Miss 
Frances E. Willard are very mild: "Because these 
(temperance and purity) have not yet been wrought 
out into success, the world is bewildered by crooked 
thought and besmirched by personal uncleanness. The 
blows of inebriated husbands are falling fast upon the 
bodies of defenseless wives and children ; and that 
most holy thing in all the world, the wedded love of 
two, is being murdered by the deadliest lust" (Last 
Address). 

It is quite evident that the marital wrongs under 
discussion are in consequence of the "double stand- 
ard" of morals that has obtained from the remote 
past. Young women have been held to the standard 
of unsullied purity, while young men have been in- 
dulged in "sowing wild oats." This unjust discrim- 
ination is the root-curse of our civilization. 

The editor of "The Ladies Home Journal" [June, 
1908], makes the following wholesome observations: 
"The double standard of morality of the sexes has 
perplexed thousands of women. Thousands of moth- 
ers have accepted departures from their ideas of mo- 
rality on the part of their sons as inevitable be- 
cause 'hygienic reasons were hinted at which women 
cannot understand.' " 

It is due to women that they should know the truth. 
"Sowing wild oats" on the part of a young man was 
strangely enough believed by many, both medical and 
non-medical men alike, to be a physical necessity, 
whereas, from no medical studies or investigation 



118 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



anywhere attainable, would such a "physical necessity" 
hold good. 

All the great medical organizations the world over, 
stand as an absolute unit on the fallacy that a young 
man is physically the worse for living a clean moral 
life. The entire weight of evidence of the world's 
foremost medical knowledge is unreservedly of the 
opinion that he is physically the better for it. 

The distinguished specialists of the International 
Brussels Congress declared, as a body, that a clean 
moral life for a man is not prejudicial to health, but 
on the contrary is to be recommended from a purely 
hygienic point of view. 

The foremost German medical society took the 
same ground. 

Fourier, one of the greatest specialists in the world, 
said of the so-called "physical dangers" of strict mo- 
rality in men, "I do not know them." 

The foremost medical society in America for the 
study of this subject, stamps the "wild oats" fallacy 
as one of the most dangerous errors to be counteracted, 
and roundly condemns the idea, almost universally 
prevalent among young men that "sowing wild oats" 
is a "physical necessity essential to their health." 

The action taken by these eminent medical societies 
in Europe and America and the testimony of individ- 
uals distinguished in the medical profession, must ex- 
cite the gratitude and admiration of every true woman 
and right-thinking man. For, to banish the deadly 
fallacy of "sowing wild oats" from the millions of 
boys and men annually ruined by it, and to point the 
millions of virtuous youth into the highway of spot- 
less character that leads to high achievement and 
noble parenthood, is indeed the crowning rescue 
work. 

The greatest of all reforms comes now into sight, 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 119 



"A White Life for Two;' as Miss Frances E. Wil- 
lard called it, declaring, "You must be as pure and 
true as you require me to be, ere I give you my hand" 
(World's Parliament of Religions, Vol. II., p. 1233). 

We are moving toward this Scriptural standard by 
slow but increasing speed. Modern research proves it 
to be the law of Nature, which is the law of God as 
truly as the Decalogue is the law of God. Our ap- 
proach toward the single standard of morality for 
both sexes is not very near yet, for we have had a 
great distance to come. Our remote ancestry was 
pagan. And in Paganism womankind is always at 
great disadvantage. 

The following facts will indicate our past improve- 
ment, and show our progress of late to have been 
more rapid : 

Among our Aryan descendants whether in Hindu- 
ism [190,000,000] or in Buddhism [147,000,000] wo- 
man has been thought a being to please man by man- 
ual labor and sexual service, as having no soul nor im- 
mortality except through man. A Hindu of culture, 
in proof of their religious unity, said, "We all believe 
in the sanctity of the cow and the depravity of 
woman." 

And their Brahmin philosophers — profound in 
transcendental philosophy, but strangely awry in social 
science, inflict upon woman the deepest degradation. 
By the Institutes of Menu, "Woman can have no sep- 
arate holy rites, nor perform for herself any acts of 
devotion." And according to the Veda, ''Woman is 
so bad that she is simply an incarnation of sin. She 
cannot be trusted. Her evidence in law cannot be 
taken. She must not read the sacred books, as she is 
to have no concern with religious rites." 

This degrading bondage was broken when our pagan 
ancestors accepted Christ, who came "to set at liberty 



120 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



them that are bruised" (Acts 4:18), and establish a 
new order wherein "there is neither male nor female, 
for ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). 

But toward the end of the first century a reaction 
set in — "a dislike to the public ministrations of wom- 
en," which "intensified into abhorrence before the 
middle of the Second Century" (Prof. Ramsay, Aber- 
deen). "Nevertheless, woman kept her place as an 
unveiled 'Presbytress' in the church until the 'Council 
of Laodicea' [A. D. 360?] forbade her ordination, 
and forbade women entering within the altar" (Prof. 
Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire). 

The apostacy abolishing the common priesthood of 
believers (1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 1:6) forfeited Divine in- 
spiration (1 Cor. 12:6-11), and putting in its place 
stated preaching, in time turned the church into a 
hierarchy of ritualism, magical rites and exciting leg- 
ends, bringing on the Dark Ages, out of which, cen- 
turies later, we came paganized, with woman degraded 
from her rank and excluded from the education that 
might regain it. 

A few nobler of the clergy founded Harvard in 
1638 to supply an educated ministry, but still debar- 
ring woman from even a common school education. 
This privilege was granted her one hundred and fifty- 
three years later, in 1791. But not until 1828 — thirty- 
seven years later — were girls allowed in all grades in 
primary schools. 

It is only thirty-two years ago, in 1878, that the first 
high school for girls was opened in Boston. And 
then some objected (1) that it was not Scriptural; (2) 
that if educated, women would preach; (3) that phy- 
sically they cannot bear the strain. Bishop E. O. Haven 
relates the following: "In 1853 [only fifty-seven years 
ago] when professor in the Michigan State University, 
I said 'the university ought to be open alike to men 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



121 



and women.' A fellow professor declared, 'I was 
crazy!' but in sixteen years I saw, as president, the 
university opened by the legislature." 

Now there are in the United States four hundred 
and fifty-one colleges and universities. Of these three 
hundred and ten are co-educational; and, in addition, 
there are forty-three colleges exclusively for women. 

Now the great universities of Europe and America, 
with few exceptions, are open alike to men and 
women. 

Now with twice as nany women as men teaching 
the public schools, and more than twice as many girl? 
as boys graduating from the high schools, and with 
women increasingly taking the class-honors in college 
and university studies, and with their success in do- 
mestic economy and business, agriculture and manu- 
facture, literature, and politics, and the learned pro- 
fessions of medicine and law, their fitness and natural 
right to equal rank with men is no longer a question. 
Indeed, their success in the four hundred occupations 
now entered and their superior enthusiasm in edu- 
cation [President Andrew White, Cornell University, 
says, "as a rule lady students average ten per cent, bet- 
ter in class-examinations than young men"] forecast- 
ing higher intelligence in wives than in husbands, ren- 
ders their subjection to belated, deteriorated men an 
insufferable outrage. 

That this language may not seem extravagant, ad- 
ditional to the foregoing marital wrongs, it may be 
well to glance into the horrors of 
Marital Crime. 

The marital crime here considered is the destruc- 
tion of human life yet unborn. It violates the sixth 
commandment of the Decalogue, "Thou shalt not kill." 
So far all agree. But difference of opinion exists as 
to when life begins. "Many women are taught that 



122 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



life begins at the time of 'quickening/ therefore it is 
no harm to arrest pregnancy previous to feelings of 
motion. Others believe there is no life till birth" 
(Tokology, p. 245). 

Much ignorance has existed, and still exists, on 
this subject, not only among the uneducated, but also 
among physicians and legislators. Five states (Con- 
necticut, Minnesota, Oregon, Arkansas and Missis- 
sippi) by legislation make wilful abortion a crime un- 
der penalty only if the mother "be quick with child!" 

But "quickening" marks a stage of development in 
infant life, and not the fact of that life simply; there- 
fore the fallacy of such legislation! How absurd it 
would be if a judge and jury were to fix the guilt of 
a murderer upon the age of his victim instead of the 
criminality of the murderer's act! 

Modern research proves beyond question that life 
is present from the moment of conception ; hence it 
is a foul act of murder to extinguish it. In absence 
of this knowledge, such act is not possible without 
self-condemnation. Innocence abhors the violation of 
nature. Herod's massacre of infants at Bethlehem 
sinks into insignificance when compared with the 
wholesale slaughter of unborn infants in America. 
Often the motive is of less importance than was Her- 
od's. Mrs. Grannis, president of the National League 
for the Promotion of Purity, New York, tells of a 
highly educated young wife who "was having the 
fifth abortion, with no earthly reason, only because 
she did not wish to be laid aside from society!" (The 
Light, July, 1908, p. 47). 

The enormity of this crime is indicated by the data 
piven by Rudolph Wieser Holmes, M. D., chairman. 
Committee on Criminal Abortion, Chicago Medical 
Society : "A physician, eighty-one years old, convicted 
of abortion-murder, said, T've done five thousand of 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 123 



them in my time' !" [Think of a man committing five 
thousand murders of helpless infants !] 

A criminal operator of Boston with three others 
"had done some three thousand illegal operations in 
five years," and suggestively said, "And we are not the 
only ones doing it, either !" 

"Miss Crowell informs us that an official gives his 
opinion that over one hundred thousand criminal op- 
erations are performed in New York annually ! 

"A detective in Chicago found not far from one 
hundred abortionists who do twenty-five thousand an- 
nually. 

"There are five hundred midwives in Chicago, of 
whom one hundred and seventy-five do seventeen 
thousand and five hundred annually. Adding the 
twenty-five thousand and the seventeen thousand and 
five hundred gives forty-two thousand, five hundred. 
Then there are 'numerous bath-parlors, massage 
rooms, etc., where abortions are done.'" 

To show the defection of the public conscience, Dr. 
Holmes cites the following: "A professional abortion- 
ist, now serving a ten-year sentence in the Maryland 
penitentiary, had a petition presented to the governor 
asking for his pardon. On the petition were the names 
of state senators and representatives, a member or two 
of Congress, lawyers, merchants, clergymen, women, 
physicians; and the jury which convicted him unani- 
mously signed their names" ... "A state senator 
stated that one-half of the house of delegates and a 
majority of the senate had signed the petition!" (The 
Light, July, 1908, pp. 42-47). 

Dr. Holmes assures us that the criminal conditions 
in Chicago are not exceptional ; that the malady is gen- 
eral throughout the land : "Permit me most emphatic- 
ally to disabuse your minds of any thought that the 
state of affairs in Chicago is any more grewsome than 



124 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



the world in general. Chicago contains no larger 
shrine to Moloch than New York, Boston, Philadel- 
phia, Paris, or London" (The Light, July, 1908). 

"The Dr. McLeod case in Boston revealed that one 
group of five doctors had performed more than seven 
thousand criminal operations during one year" (Chi- 
cago Tribune). 

In review, facing the cruel wrongs and the atro- 
cious crimes of murdering [annually one million?] un- 
born infants, all under cover of wedlock, and the con- 
sequent hereditary harm and crime, who can excuse 
the silence and apparent indifference on part of the 
pulpit and the religious press in general ? 

War and famine, for destruction of human life, fall 
short of this social desolation threatening the future 
of the nation. And what shall be said of the generally 
silent, indifferent [some cases accessory] clergy? 
"Shepherds that cannot understand" (Isa. 56:10, 11). 
"Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed them- 
selves ! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks ? 
Behold, I am against the shepherds ; and I will require 
my flock at their hand" (Ezek. 34:1, 10). 

The kind of marital wrongs and the marital crimes 
cited above [a few examples out of many thousands] 
should create a revulsion of public sentiment that 
would at once demand a single standard of purity for 
both sexes. 

And still there are 

Other Weighty Reasons 
for such single standard: 

1. The lifelong suffering and sorrow of pure, un- 
suspecting wives, in consequence of sexual vice on part 
of their husbands before marriage, may no longer be 
endured without protest. That children are born with 
reduced vitality; with nerves unstrung; with keen sus- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



125 



ceptibility to disease, invites investigation. These are 
effects of corresponding causes. That healthy, pure 
wives give birth to children affected with infectious 
diseases, discloses sexual vice on part of their hus- 
bands. Nature's law of reproduction is inexorable, 
and brings into the open every secret sin. 

Prof. William T. Belfield, Rush Medical College, 
Secretary Chicago Society of Social Hygiene, de- 
clares that: "Promiscuous and clandestine indulgence 
of the reproductive instinct, everywhere prevalent, . 
. . causes gonorrhea and syphilis. So prevalent are 
these in our large cities that at least half the adult pop- 
ulation of all social grades, according to conservative 
estimates, contract one or both of these!" (White 
Slave Trade, p. 299). 

Gonorrhea, formerly deemed "an annoyance" simi- 
lar to a cold, is now discovered to be an insidious de- 
stroyer of domestic happiness and national welfare. 

The distinguished Winfield Scott Hall, Ph.D. (Leip- 
zig), M. D. (Leipzig), Professor Physiology, North- 
western University, in his address before the Illinois 
Vigilance Association, February 8, 1909, said : "When 
a student in a medical school twenty-five years ago, 
it was a common thing to pass over, with some jocose 
remark, the disease of gonorrhea. But that isn't done 
any more. Why ? Because it is now proven to the medi- 
cal profession that gonorrhea is quite as dangerous as 
syphilis. But the people in general do not know 
that . . . Young men cannot afford to run the risk 
of gonorrhea; because it may not only wreck their 
own lives, but the germs may lurk there and may be 
transmitted two or three or more years later to some 
innocent bride" (White Slave Trade, p. 294). 

Dr. Hall further states that: "Statistics show that 
of the operations on women in the hospitals of New 
York City, year before last (1907), sixty-five per cent. 



126 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



of these operations were brought about and necessi- 
tated because of gonorrheal infection" ... "I say- 
to young men, 'fellows, isn't it time that we have a 
single standard of purity for men and women?' " 

2. Another weighty reason for this single standard 
of purity is the blindness of so many thousands of 
children in consequence of sexual vice. 

Dr. Neisser, of Berlin, discovered the vice-germ 
that causes ophthalmia of the new-born. 

He says : "After careful investigaion throughout 
Germany he concludes from statistics that there are 
30,000 blind in Germany tium this cause. In that pro- 
. ^rtion all Europe would have 200,000. 

Miss Helen Keller, the far-famed blind and deaf 
graduate of Radcliff College, has a natural right to 
speak on this subject. In the Ladies Home Journal, 
January, 1909, she says : "Continuous study of blind- 
ness has forced upon me knowledge of this subject . 
. . I cannot, without accusing myself of cowardice, 
gL^s over or ignore the fundamental evil. 

"I once believed that blindness, deafness, tubercu- 
losis, and other causes of suffering were necessary, 
unpreventable. I believed that we must accept blind 
eyes, deaf ears, diseased lungs, as we accept the havoc 
of tornadoes and deluges . . . But gradually my 
reading extended, and I found that these evils are to 
be laid, not at the door of Providence, but at the door 
of mankind, that they are in large measure due to 
ignorance, stupidity and sin. 

"The most common cause of blindness is ophthalmia 
of the new-born. One pupil in three at the 'Institution 
for the Blind' in New York City, was blinded in in- 
fancy by this disease. 

"One-fourth of the inmates of the New York State 
Home for the Blind, six hundred sightless persons in 
the State of New York, and between six and seven 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



127 



thousand persons in the United States, were plunged 
into darkness by ophthalmia of the new-born. 

"The symptoms of the disease appear in the in- 
fant's eyes soon after birth. The eyelids swell and 
become red; and about the second day they discharge 
a whitish pus . . . 

"There is a remedy ... an installation of nitrate 
of silver solution into the eyes of the child . . . 

"In France and Germany the laws require that the 
eyes of every child shall be treated with nitrate of sil- 
ver solution as soon as it is born. And in these coun- 
tries there has been a considerable decrease in blind- 
ness from the scourge of ophthalmia neonatorum [of 
new-born] . . . This is a specific germ received 
from the husband infected in licentious relations be- 
fore or since marriage and communicated to the child 
. . . It is part of the bitter harvest of the 'wild 
oats' he has sown. 

"Of the consequences of social sin, blindness is by 
no means the most terrible. The same infection which 
blots out the eyes of the baby is responsible for many 
childless homes ; for thousands of cases of lifelong in- 
validism; for eighty per cent, of all inflammatory dis- 
eases peculiar to women ; and for seventy-five per cent, 
of all operations performed on mothers to save their 
lives/; 

This question of the sex-life has the lengthy consid- 
eration here because it is fundamental ; and because 
its perversion is the most detrimental. Of all our ap- 
petites, it is by nature the strongest; therefore it is 
the most likely to take control, spreading discord and 
destruction throughout the entire organism. 

Its perversion is the most insidious ; beginning with 
sweetest pleasure, advancing by stealthy seizure, and 
ending in hopeless ruin. Hence the need of further 
consideration as to protection. 



128 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



CHAPTER VII. 

Ethical Prophylaxis. 

Prophylaxis is "the art of preserving from, or of 
preventing disease ; the observance of the rules neces- 
sary for the preservation of health" (Webster). 

It is to avoid the things that cause disease. It is 
to fortify against disease. It is to guard against dis- 
ease beforehand; hence the word prophylaxis, from 
the Greek pro — before, and phulassein — to guard, to 
guard beforehand. 

Prophylaxis, the art of avoiding disease, is fast tak- 
ing the place of therapeutics, the art of curing disease. 

Now, in application, the change is easily made from 
the medical to the moral use of these terms. Moral 
prophylaxis is fast taking the place of moral thera- 
peutics. It is easier to avoid sin and vice than to be 
cured of them. More and more the regeneration of 
adult sinners moves toward infancy. Very few people 
are converted at middle-age and beyond. The great 
majority /eturn to God between the ages of ten and 
twenty years. The Divine regeneration of the race 
involves the human generation of the race. 

Moral prophylaxis requires 

A Proper Diet. 

What to eat? When to eat? How to eat? How 
much to eat ? are questions that always shape character 
and limit destiny. Wrong diet dates the decline and 
final downfall of individuals and of nations (Ezek. 
16:49). This question of food is fundamental and of 
transcending importance. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 129 



It is easier to avoid a wrong thing than the mis- 
use of a right thing. Eating food is essentially a good 
thing, but eating food to excess is bad. This is so 
insidious. Its presence and progress open the way 
to eating foods that are intrinsically harmful. If it 
were the intrusion of an open, outward evil, it could 
be quickly seen and avoided ; but it is an inward es- 
sential good simply pressed beyond its God-appointed 
limit; therefore it is not detected until it has become 
a habit. Because of these characteristics, it is well 
suited to deceive into gluttony and decoy into drunk- 
enness with its mate, licentiousness ; hence our Lord's 
warning: "Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time 
your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunk- 
enness," etc. — "with all animal excesses, quenching 
spirituality" (Brown and Fawcett). 

On the relation of food to sexual purity, the dis- 
tinguished Dr. J. H. Kellogg, superintendent, Battle 
Creek Sanitarium, says : "The influence of dietetic 
habits should rank next to heredity. It is an observed 
fact that all libertines are great eaters . . . Nothing 
tends so powerfully to keep the passions in abeyance 
as a simple diet" (Plain Facts, p. 292). 

So the editor of The Medical Brief, St. Louis, 
U. S. A., has wisely said : "The question of diet is the 
most important problem before the medical profession 
to-day." Likewise Alfred Eichholtz, M. D., savs : 
"Food is the point about which turns the whole prob- 
lem of degeneracy" (Strength and Diet, p. 119). And 
the eminent Sir James C. Browne, M. D., F. R. S., 
declares that: "This question of food is one of pri- 
mary importance, far more than education." 

1. Foods, etc., interdicted — These naturally tend to 
excite the sexual instinct. Such are animal fats, pork, 
rich puddings, lard-pastries, alcohol, tobacco, all 
strong teas, strong coffee. 



130 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



The tannin in tea and coffee irritates the stomach 
and weakens the gastric juice. "Tea has much more 
tannin than coffee, and is, therefore, more injurious." 
And green teas have about twice as much tannin as 
black teas. 

On the sexual influence of food, the eminent Dr. J. 
H. Kellogg says: "Stimulating food, pepper, vinegar, 
mustard, apices, condiments generally, tea, coffee and 
excess of animal food, have clearly appreciable influ- 
ence in inducing premature occurrence of puberty, and 
should be prohibited" (Plain Facts, p. 76). 

It is apparent that the constant use of sexual stimu- 
lants cause undue development of the sexual nature, 
putting it in control of the entire organism and thereby 
inducing sexual excesses with all their consequent 
evils. The only remedy is prohibition. 

2. Foods under special limitation — These naturally 
tend to clog the circulatory system by supplying nitrog- 
enous material in excess of assimilation. Instance, 
excess of animal food, newly-baked yeast bread, soggy 
potatoes, etc., etc. 

Such foods oppress the nervous system and becloud 
the spiritual nature, subjecting one easily to the sway 
of the lower appetites. 

One class of reformers radically declare: "Crime 
and sin are the heritage of base meat eating. Let 
youth be fed on preferred grains, and have no meat 
fiber till after fourteen or fifteen, and the sins of youth 
will be unknown." 

For sustentation, animal food is surely not needed ; 
for whole wheat bread contains all the elements of the 
human body. The various cereals — wheat, oats, rice, 
etc., etc., in their manifold preparations afford a diet 
at once much more nutritious and much cheaper than 
meat. 

This much-disputed point of diet must not be dis- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 131 



missed till we have further consulted science and his- 
tory. The "radical reformers" in hygiene have in their 
favor some incontestable facts of history, ancient and 
modern. 

From creation to the deluge — fifteen and a half cen- 
turies — all were vegetarians. 

And since then "The Orientals have been at all times 
sparing in the use of animal food" (McClintock and 
Strong, Bib. Theol. Eccl. Encycl., Vol. II., p. 797). 
The Jews from Abraham to the Christian era — about 
two thousand years — have totally abstained from 
swine's flesh, and have used other meats sparingly 
(Angus, Bible Handbook, p. 280) ; according to the 
Divine precepts : "And the swine . . . he is unclean 
unto you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their 
carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you" 
(Lev. 11:7, 8) ; "Be not among wine-bibbers; among 
riotous eaters of flesh" (Prov. 23:20). 

The Persians, the span of whose empire once in- 
cluded North India on the East and Egypt on the 
West, held the world-sceptre of civilization for cen- 
turies, as vegetarians living on one meal a day. 

"What made the troops of Cyrus, thought to be in- 
vincible, was the temperance and hard life to which 
they were accustomed from their infancy, having noth- 
ing but water for their ordinary drink, and bread and 
roots [vegetables] for their food," etc. (Rollin, An- 
cient History, Vol. I., p. 200). 

The Greeks achieved the highest intellectual culture 
and best physical development of the world, by being 
vegetarians eating two meals a day. 

Under their great law-giver, Lycurgus, Sparta had 
a common table for all citizens, rich and poor, old 
and young, whose diet was fixed by law, and consisted 
of "coarse black bread, beans and fish" (Ridpath, Hist, 
of World, Vol. II., p. 169). 



132 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



Pythagoras [570 B. C] dieted on bread, honey and 
herbs. He founded the first vegetable club of three 
hundred young men at Crotona. Of him remarks Plu- 
tarch [70 B. C.] : "You ask on what grounds Pythag- 
oras abstained from feeding on the flesh of animals? 
I, for my part, wonder of what sort of feeling, mind, 
or reason that man was possessed who was the first 
to pollute his mouth with gore, and to allow his lips to 
touch the flesh of a murdered being," etc. (Good 
Health, 1904, p. 285). 

So Dr. Graham declares: "The Roman soldier was 
far the most powerful and heroic in Rome's earliest 
days when he subsisted on his vegetable diet" (Russel, 
Strength and Diet, p. 117). At that early day, the 
diet of Rome consisted in "black bread (barley), beans 
and other pulse with fish added" (Ridpath, History of 
the World, Vol. II., p. 243). 

Coming to modern times, "The Rajputs and Sikhs 
of the Punjab (India), are stronger than Europeans, 
and endure more fatigue. Their diet is wheaten 
flour — two meals a day (Sir. C. Campbell, Commis- 
sioner in Chief, Indian Army). 

Dr. Adam Ferguson [Edinburgh], the historian, 
after strokes of paralysis, became at sixty a Pythagor- 
ean, eating only vegetables and drinking water and 
milk, got rid of every paralytical symptom, became ro- 
bust, muscular and lived to ninety" (Russel, Strength 
and Diet, p. 334). 

The Chinese minister at Washington [1909] de- 
clared: "The Chinese all-around laborer easily dis- 
tances all competitors, on a diet of a few bowls of rice" 
(Strength and Diet, p. 170). 

"The Japanese," says Mr. Peery, "are the most 
vegetarian race on earth. Japan is about wholly veg- 
etarian. They use forty kinds of beans and peas, rice, 
rye, barley, wheat, maize. They do not polish the 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 133 



rice, which removes one-fourth of the fiber material." 

The Japanese are now a study as to the source of 
their power. 

A writer says: "The Japanese are allowed to be 
among the strongest people on earth. They are strong 
mentally and physically; and yet they practically eat 
no meat at all. The diet which enables them to de- 
velop such hard frames and such well-balanced, keen 
brains, consists almost wholly of rice, steamed or 
boiled, while the better-to-do add to this Spartan fare, 
fish, eggs, vegetables and fruits. 

"For beverages they use weak tea, withour sugar or 
milk, and water which is imbibed in what we should 
consider prodigious quantities . . . The average 
Japanese individual swallows about one gallon daily, 
in divided doses." 

Their unparalleled strength has come about in this 
manner: "In 1849 the Emperor appointed a commis- 
sion to see what steps should be taken to improve the 
Japanese physique. One question submitted was 
whether a partial meat diet would be an advantage. 
So far as meat went, the commission reported: 'The 
Japanese had always managed to do without it. Their 
power of endurance and their athletic prowess ex- 
ceeded that of any Caucasian race/ Japan's diet 
stands on a foundation of rice" (Russell, Strength and 
Diet, p. 201). 

Mr. G. Lynch says: "The Japanese possess the 
greatest endurance of any people on earth" (Russell. 
Strength and Diet, p. 294). In evidence is the cam- 
paign of 1900 [Boxer Insurrection]. In the advance 
upon Peking, the Japanese outmarched the armies of 
Russia, Germany, England, France and the United 
States. 

After the foregoing facts, this statement of the em- 
inent biologist and physician, Sir Henry Thompson, 



134 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



M. D., F. R. C. S., will be accepted at full value : "It 
is a vulgar [common] error to regard meats in any 
form as necessary to life. All that is necessary to the 
human body can be supplied by the vegetable king- 
dom" (Diet, Relation to Age and Activity, p. 70). 

It is well to remember that eating meat is of mod- 
ern origin; that oats constituted the main diet of Eu- 
rope for tzvo thousand years. The Irish in ancient 
times, living principally on vegetable diet, were desig- 
nated, as late as Spencer [1782] poeephagoi — "herb- 
eaters." In 1763 slaughtered bullocks for food in Scot- 
land were wholly unknown (McCulloch) (Strength 
and Diet, p. 132). 

All agree that purity and strength of blood are chief 
factors in the health of body and mind. All agree 
that, to have pure and strong blood, all foreign and 
effete matter must be removed from the system, and 
no more introduced from without. 

Now, it is well known that the human body becomes 
poisonous immediately after death, and why not also 
the bodies of other animals? J. H. Kellogg, M. D., 
declares : "Decomposition of an animal begins within 
twenty-four hours after death, even if the carcase is 
kept in an ice-box. Flesh that is tender, has high 
flavor, is always well started on the road to decay . . . 
Such meat is found to be swarming with bacteria" 
(Voice, September 9, 1897). 

It requires no strain of the reasoning faculty to see 
that such deadly matter, clogging the circulatory sys- 
tem, tends to induce disease ; actually does oppress the 
nervous system, and dulls the moral and spiritual fac- 
ulties, favoring the commission of crime and the per- 
version of the powers of parenthood. Wherefore this 
strongest of all human appetites needs, for its proper 
direction, the free poise of the mental and moral pow- 
ers quickened and transformed by the almighty in- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 135 



workings of God's grace (2 Thess. 2:13,14; 2 Cor. 
3:18; Col. 1:9-11; Heb. 13:20,21). 

Herein we see that Christ crucified is the only ra- 
tional solution of creation. "He is before all things 
and by Him all things consist" (Col. 1:17). 

The formerly skeptical Swiss historian, Johann Von 
Mueller, convincedly declares : "The gospel is the per- 
fection of all philosophy, the key to all the seeming 
contradictions of the physical and the moral world. 
Since I have known the Savior everything is clear." 

In order to manifest this power of the gospel to 
restore man to the forfeited nature of God and the 
harmony of heaven, physical and mental degenerates 
in consequence of sexual vice, and moral perverts in 
consequence of hereditary and Satanic influences, were 
made whole by the miracles of Christ (John 5:14). 
And any relapses were preventable by gospel dietetics 
and spiritual hygiene (Luke 21:34; 1 Cor. 10:31; 
6:19,20). 

Hygiene requires proper quantity in eating as well 
as proper quality. It is an open question whether 
wrong quantity is not doing more harm than wrong 
quality. The sin of over-eating is all but universal, 
and is said to produce more disease than all other 
causes. The best of food over-fed is harmful. And 
over-feeding comes of great variety of dishes at the 
same meal. 

Protest has been entered by a line of physiologists 
ever since the time of Hippocrates [460 B. C] and 
Galen [130 A. D.]. Pliny [23 A. D.] declared : "Many 
dishes bring many diseases." And the illustrious Avi- 
cenna [980 A. D.] a distinguished Arabic physician, 
declared : "Nothing is worse than feeding on many 
dishes." And the scholarly, facetious, Robert Burton 
[nom de plume, "Democritus Junior," 1576 A. D.] 



136 CHRIST IN ETHICS 

said, "This gluttony kills more than the sword" (An- 
atomy Melancholy, p. 142). 

"All dietetic facts and principles go to establish 
these two conclusions (1) that all eat double the quan- 
tity of food necessary for the attainment of the highest 
state of mental and physical vigor and endurance, (2) 
that over-eating is the great cause of modern disease" 
(Human Science, p. 463). 

"Before the National Academy of Sciences recently 
[1904] Prof. Chittenden of the Sheffield Scientific 
School of Yale University, gave the results of the last 
year's experiments in diet. They were undertaken to 
ascertain whether the average healthy man eats too 
much. They proved, said Prof. Chittenden, that a 
third to one-half the average daily consumption of 
food is sufficient to keep a man in perfect health" 
(Michigan Christian Advocate, 1904). 

A fundamental principle of physiology is seen in the 
statement of a modern pioneer in hygiene, Edward 
Hooker Dewey, M. D., that: "Every disease that af- 
fects mankind is a constitutional possibility developed 
into disease by more or less habitual eating in excess 
of the supply of gastric juice." 

In order to avoid over-eating, most people find it 
easier to omit one meal of the day than to reduce each 
meal to hygienic standard. They are like the noted 
Dr. Ben Johnson, who said : "I can abstain, but I can- 
not moderate." Conscious of the tyranny of morbid 
appetite, Dr. Dewey himself confesses: "I am free to 
say that I know of nothing in the line of human duty 
so difficult as to avoid an excessive meal" (True 
Science of Living, p. 302). 

Observing the following rules of hygiene will secure 
the proper self-control and consequent health and 
lengthened life: 

1. Avoid eating in the early morning. Why not 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 137 



omit the evening meal instead? Because during sleep 
in the night bodily tissue has not been consumed by 
muscular activity. Hence there is not a need for food 
to supply tissue. 

2. Eat only at the call of natural hunger. Hunger 
is nature's call for tissue-forming material. Food re- 
ceived before a created need for it, lies undigested in 
the stomach and ferments, clogging the circulation 
with poisonous matter. 

3. Never crowd the mouth zvith food. Children 
are apt to form this habit when unusually hungry. It 
hinders proper salivating of the food and leads to over- 
eating and subjection to the lower appetites. Un- 
bridled appetite for food forecasts a loose rein on ap- 
petite for sex. 

4. Chew every mouthful into a liquid state. Be- 
cause all starch foods are digested only in the mouth, 
and enter at once into the circulation ; and all nitroge- 
nous foods need this thorough mastication to prepare 
them for digestion in the stomach. 

5. Avoid eating many kinds of food at one meal. 
It hinders digestion and tends to excess in eating. Em- 
inent physiologists have written against it for more 
than twenty-three centuries. 

6. Never drink at meals and one hour thereafter. It 
hinders proper mastication and weakens digestion in 
the mouth, and retards gastric digestion in the 
stomach. 

7. Never "piece between meals." It deprives the 
stomach of needed rest, and interferes with the regu- 
lar meals by creating abnormal appetite in the place 
of natural hunger, and finally deranges the entire sys- 
tem of digestion. 

Revelation as well as nature favors the foregoing 
principles of diet: 

"Woe unto thee, O Land, when thy king is a child ; 



138 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



and thy princes eat in the morning. Blessed art thou, 
O Land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy 
princes eat in due season for strength and not for 
drunkenness" (Ecclesiastes 10:16,17). 

Dr. Adam Clarke comments: "In ancient nations 
the custom was to eat but once, and that about mid- 
day." And on Acts 10:10, he says: "The dinner 
among the ancients was a very slight meal ; and they 
had no breakfast; their supper was their principal 
meal." 

In the Scripture just quoted puerility of government 
is connected with self-indulgent princes who "eat in 
the morning" ; contrariwise, nobility of government is 
connected with patriotic princes who "eat in due 
[right] time for strength" in place of lust. 

We have seen from the history of past nations that 
their ascent to greatness and glory, was characterized 
by mainly a vegetable diet of one or two meals a day ; 
and, contrariwise, that their decline and downfall were 
consequent upon their change to a great variety of 
foods and flesh of animals for self-gratification in- 
stead of the public good. 

It is forcibly manifest that a proper diet rightly 
used is a mighty factor in the problem of sexual 
purity. 

Next in the natural order of moral helps to personal 
and social purity is the question of 

Proper Dress. 

The great importance of this question is seen in its 
being a chief factor in forming and expressing char- 
acter. 

"The clothing of man is not simply for protection 
against the weather, but also largely a suggestive ex- 
pression of the inner life." . . . "Clothing is beau- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 139 



tiful only as it is really expressive of a character, 
whether it be of the nation or the individual (Wuttke, 
Christian Ethics, Vol. II., pp. 209, 245). 

It is because of this law that Parisian exploiters of 
lust create styles of dress suited to excite the sexual 
instinct in men. And many unsuspecting women are 
deluded into adopting their insidiously suggestive fash- 
ions, through mere love of display; nevertheless, there- 
by they become promoters of sexual impurity. In evi- 
dence is the testimony of the Chicago Juvenile Protec- 
tive Association: "Dress causes the downfall of the 
majority of girls who go astray" (Purity Journal, June 
1910). 

The bared arms, the "peekaboo front," and the dec- 
ollete waist exposing charms sacred to womanhood, 
appeal directly to man's sexual instinct. In consequence 
many men are weakened in moral restraint and led 
into low ideals of womanhood. Knowingly to exert 
such influences is declared by Professor Gregory to be 
downright immorality. "It is evident from the import- 
ance of man's higher nature, that the man who at- 
tempts to weaken the moral and religious restraints 
which keep men from moral evil, is guilty of a most 
atrocious vice, and is one of the worst enemies of man- 
kind" (Ethics, p. 265). 

The susceptibility of men to the influence of en- 
ticingly attired women appears in the testimony of 
Professor T. W. Shannon, A. M. : "I have lived a con- 
tinent life . . . As a husband, father, educator and 
minister, I pledge you my honor that the greatest 
trials, the sorest temptations, I have ever met, have 
come from improperly dressed women and semi-nude 
pictures" (Perfect Manhood, p. 59). 

I doubt not that the widespread prevalence of this 
downright immorality is a chief barrier to the progress 
of Christianity. A clergyman of wide observation, 



140 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



the Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D., said that he be- 
lieved "thousands of men are in hell, whose eternal 
damnation is due to the improper dress of women." 

On this point John Wesley administered the follow- 
ing rebuke: "The fact is plain and undeniable; it has 
this effect both upon the wearer and the beholder. You 
poison the beholder with far more of this base appe- 
tite than otherwise he would feel. Did you not knozv 
this would be the natural consequence of your elegant 
adorning? To push the question home, did you not 
desire, did you not design it should? You kindle a 
flame which at the same time consumes both yourself 
and your admirers. And it is well if it does not plunge 
both you and them into the flames of hell" (Sermons, 
Vol. II., p. 261). 

When the "majority of girls who go astrav" [i. e., 
about 35,000 in every year], have fallen through the 
lust of dress, it is high time that all pure women — not 
to say women in the several churches — should set an 
example of true womanly modesty, wholesome to fol- 
low. The distinguished J. H. Kellogg persuasively de- 
clares: "Wealthy women could do more to cure the 
'social evil' by adopting plain attire than all the civil 
authorities by passing license laws or regulating ordi- 
nances" (Plain Facts, p. 92). 

When will parents give this subject merited consid- 
eration? When will they no longer turn an infant 
daughter into the ways of self-indulgence and sin by 
ornamenting her with "gold and costly array" in obedi- 
ence to worldly, sin-enticing usage, forcing premature 
development of the sexual nature, instead of nourish- 
ing the spiritual nature (Rom. 5:18), by example and 
precept? Will they not cease to jeopardize innocent 
purity by clothing [unclothing] their youthful daugh- 
ter in sleeveless dresses so nearly skirtless as to ex- 
pose her legs above the knee, if not entirely, and that. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 141 



too, up to the age of ten or twelve years, notwithstand- 
ing she has been hearing and talking matters of sex 
ever since she was five or six years old. 

That invisible, yet clearly seen enswathement of in- 
nocent purity — woman's highest charm — once for- 
feited, is not regained. A shy demeanor or bold, bois- 
terous mien discloses its absence. Character that is 
to be in womanhood must be instilled in childhood and 
conserved in girlhood. 

"Adopting plain attire," noticed by Dr. Kellogg, is 
not a question of expediency first of all. Its authority 
is not that of social or even national usage. God has 
spoken. He commands "That the women adorn them- 
selves in modest apparel, with shame-fastness [mod- 
esty, reverence, Gr.] and sobriety [sound mind] ; not 
with braided hair, and gold or pearls or costly raiment ; 
but (which becometh women professing godliness) 
through good works" R. V. (1 Tim. 2 :9, 10). "Whose 
adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plait- 
ing the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on 
of apparel. But let it be the hidden man of the heart, 
in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of 
a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God 
of great price" (1 Peter 3:3,4). 

Here, in Paul and Peter alike, outward adorning of 
the body is forbidden, and inward adorning of the 
spirit is commanded. That excites "fleshly lusts which 
war against the soul" (1 Peter 2:11) ; this inspires the 
heart with meekness unto good works. 

Well in place are the wholesome words of the un- 
crowned queen of women, Miss Frances E. Willard : 
"Let that mother know, who tricks out her little girl 
in all the colors of the rainbow ; puts rings on her fin- 
gers if not 'bells on her toes/ etc., that she has delib- 
erately deformed a body that came fresh from God's 
hand, and manacled a soul that was made in His im- 



142 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



age . . . Girls learn the love of dress at their 
mother's side and at their father's knee . . . Girls 
are systematically drilled into lust of the eye and the 
pride of life; into false standards of taste, and those 
worldly estimates of which look only upon the outward 
adorning . . ." 

"Alas, . . . that reputable women will appear in 
such costume as makes it difficult for sons and brothers 
to keep the White Cross pledge. If women realized the 
unspeakable degradation of this exposure, if they re- 
flected upon the consequences to the world in case all 
women should dress as they do, if they could be made 
to know the results that inevitably and swiftly follow 
such immoral exhibitions . . . they would need no 
tinge of artificial color for the cheeks which would be 
carmined with shame ... If young women knew 
what is the outcome to those tempted as they are not, 
of an evening spent in their company, where the low 
corsage, the naked arm, the whirling dances allure 
young manhood, they would sink upon their faces be- 
fore God in penitence. If they realized what distressed 
parents could tell them, as they have told me, about 
the results of such temptation upon the conduct of 
their sons, . . . not even the all-potent dictum of 
the (im) 'modistes' could hereafter bring them to this 
unchaste disrobing." 

The Dance. 

Additional to a "proper diet" and "proper dress" as 
preventives of sexual impurity, certain diversions and 
amusements must be absolutely avoided — such as tend 
to sexual flush. 

1. The modern dance is of this class. That certain 
high schools and universities allow class dances and 
some social orders, and even churches, allow the 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 143 



dance is not morally in its favor, but indicates their 
own deterioration in morality. The following facts 
prove this : 

(1) "Nineteen out of every twenty confessions 
made to Archbishop Spaulding by fallen girls, attrib- 
ute their downfall to the dance." 

(2) "Seventy-five per cent, of the fallen women in 
this country and Europe owe their ruin to the dance" 
(J. B. Culpepper). 

(3) "Between eighty and ninety per cent, of fallen 
women in [American] society can point to the dance 
as the cause of their downfall." 

(4) The dance now, as of old, is demoralizing. Aris- 
totle [Greek] and Diodorus and Cicero [Roman] ob- 
jected (a) to its over-exertion, (b) to its lascivious- 
ness" (Samson's Art Criticism, p. 39). 

These evils of the dance now exist. The long-con- 
tinued dancing and the unseasonable banquet are dele- 
terious to health. "I once overheard a group of danc- 
ing young men say that they were going to quit danc- 
ing for a while, as they had such bodily lassitude and 
mental sluggishness that they were unable to do any- 
thing" (Prof. Shannon, Perfect Manhood, p. 55). 
Their sexual nature had been exhausted. 

(5) That the modern dance directly excites lasciv- 
ious thought and sexual feeling is the general experi- 
ence. This is not an open question. So evident is the 
fact, that "most fallen women testify that their first 
step toward an outcast life was taken in the dance" 
(Perfect Manhood, p. 54). 

The measure of a woman's power to withstand the 
overtures of designing men is the strength of her de- 
termination to keep them at arm's distance. Their 
touch degrades. 

(6) "Do teachers, superintendents, school boards, 
fathers and mothers realize what it [the dance] is do- 



144 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



ing? Surely not, or they would rise en masse and 
stamp it out of existence, instead of resting and say- 
ing, 4 Young folks must have their . fun, and that is 
innocent.' What is it about the dance that will cause 
the sweet young girl to have that unusual flush on her 
cheek, to throw aside her maidenly reserve, and too 
many times that cloak of modesty, and then exclaim, 
'I would rather dance than eat!' Is it simply because 
of exercise ? Why then does she not dance with girls ? 
. . . Ah, we know that it is the sex relations that 
bring a quickening of the pulse. As her hand is placed 
in his, his arm about her waist, his breath upon her 
cheek — under the influence of music, laughter, and 
softened lights, can she be a girl and not feel her 
pulse bound within her? . . . If he does not feel 
his pulse quicken while he is dancing with his partner, 
he will not dance with her again ; simply says, 'She is 
no good to dance with; she doesn't put herself into it 
enough !' 

"Why is it that even high school boys, after the 
'hop' that concludes some class party, will visit some 
ill-famed resort after he has seen his lady home? I 
have known many cases of this sort to take place while 
I was a high school instructor" (Florence Ethel Smith, 
in The Light, July, 1909, pp. 31, 32). 

(7) The eminent professor of physiology at North- 
western University, W. S. Hall, Ph.D., M. D., sugges- 
tively declares : "It hardly seems possible that a virile 
young man, in his early twenties, could be subjected 
for several hours to the conditions of the dance hall, 
where he is brought into very close physical contact 
with young women, dressed to expose their secondary 
sexual features, perfumed to excite in man his hered- 
itary sexual instincts ; held so close to his partner in 
the round dance that he is conscious of every move- 
ment of her limbs, and all under the influence of arti- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 145 



ficial light and music — I say it is hardly possible for a 
virile young man to be subjected to these conditions 
without experiencing an extreme sexual excitement 
. . All specialists in this field, without a single excep- 
tion, concur in the belief that the dance is a device of 
the devil so far as the young men are concerned" 
(Sexual Hygiene, pp. 147, 148). 

It is quite evident that the charm of the modern 
dance is in the magnetic embrace of the sexes. Purity 
of thought and of feeling forbids such relations. 

Another fatal foe to ethical prophylaxis, or moral 
preventives, is 

The Theater. 

Very closely related to the theater is the sensational 
novel. Like the theater, it debases the imagination, 
induces a morbid state of the sensibilities, and instills 
false standards of individual and social life. Both 
make it hard to do right and easy to do wrong. In- 
stance : "Judge. Depue, of New Jersey, sentenced Aid- 
en Fales, a boy of sixteen years old, to be hanged on 
August 11, 1892, for murder. 

"The judge said in sentencing him : 'You had oppor- 
tunities for education and religious instruction superior 
to most persons of your situation in life. You were a 
member of a Christian church; you attended Sabbath 
school and were admitted to its communion. Unfor- 
tunately, you gave yourself up to a literature which 
stimulated your propensity to obtain property dishon- 
estly, and taught you the manner in which noted crim- 
inals committed crimes of great atrocity, and the means 
by which they were successful in avoiding detection. 
You did not intend to kill the deceased; but, in per- 
petrating the robbery you designed, you took his life" 
(Selected). 



146 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



"A Government officer says: 'Almost all the boys 
brought before the criminal courts ascribe their down- 
fall to impure reading.' In almost every state gangs of 
little thieves have been formed to pilfer stores, etc. 
Every case is traceable to dime novels," etc. (Mich. 
Chr. Ad., April 13, 1907). Likewise the immorality of 
the theater is beyond question. Judge W. W. Foster 
of General Sessions Court of New York declares : 
'Unquestionably stage-crime has a tendency to inspire 
crime by the most ordinary causes of criminal act, 
which is traceable to hypnotic suggestion'" (Current 
Literature, November, 1909). 

Archbishop Farley has recently declared that "The 
theater has never been so vile since the fall of Rome." 

"Edward VII. of England, on August 31, 1907, an- 
grily quitted the theater at Marienbad, because of a 
lewd song by a noted actress. Last year [1910] Presi- 
dent Taft did the same thing under like circumstances. 

The immorality of the theater is confessed by a 
prominent actress : "Not long ago a friend said to me, 
'My daughter is anxious to prepare herself for the 
stage. I have tried to dissuade her, but it seems to be 
of no use, and I'm afraid I must let her have her way. 
To what dramatic school would you advise me to send 
her?' 'Well,' I said, 'You might give her a prepara- 
tory course in vice.' 

"I meant just about that. In the whole theatrical 
fabric there is almost nothing that is not attended by 
immorality, indecency or dishonesty, and too fre- 
quently by them all. Virtue in women and honor in 
men are so rare that when they do occur, they are 
matters of surprised comment, if not derision among 
the initiated. 

"After a period of service covering more years than 
I like to confess, I am convinced that the theatrical 
business is the most corrupt in the world ; corrupt from 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 147 



every possible viewpoint; corrupt commercially, artis- 
tically, educationally, morally . . . Every year the 
stage swallows up an army of pretty, fresh-cheeked 
young women for the rows of its choruses ... of 
these girls, not one per cent, stay in it, nor one per 
cent, escape the damnation that withers soul and body 
ere the years of youth have fairly passed. 

"It is for these reasons that I have written this ar- 
ticle . . . The conditions are growing so much 
worse each year, that I can no longer preserve silence 
.... It is common knowledge that certain mana- 
gers make expensive productions year after year solely 
through funds contributed by rich men whose proteges 
have an inclination to shine behind the footlights" (The 
Light, November, 1910, pp. 31, 33, 34). 

Some statements in this confession of a long ex- 
perienced actress, condemning the theater seem very 
strong; but when noted actresses put upon their best 
behavior before the President of the United States 
and before the King of Great Britain and Emperor 
of India, offend by their indelicacy and obscenity, what 
may be expected of the stage on common occasions? 
Some of the plays in Boston and New York City have 
been so low in lewdness that the police were compelled 
to call them off. 

And a most deplorable aspect of this business is the 
corrupting of children by the five-cent "moving pic- 
ture" theaters. These prepare the way to the more im- 
moral theaters. A competent witness declares : "With- 
out a moment's hesitation, I would say after much 
investigation, one curse of our land is the five-cent 
theatres" (E. A. Bell, B. A.) 

The immoral effect upon the stage-child is fatal. A 
few cases prove this : The National Child Labor Com- 
mittee reports that "on the day a committee of the 
Massachusetts legislature was listening to an argument 



148 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



by the theatrical managers why the stage should be 
exempt from the child-labor law, a police court in the 
city was trying a young woman of twenty-three for 
participating in the most immoral dancing ever known 
to the Boston police. She was an actress in one of 
the 'best' ( ?) theaters in Boston. Nor is this case so 
exceptional . . . 

'The New York Society for the Prevention of Cru- 
elty to Children, of several cases, reports the follow- 
ing: No. 1. A young woman trained by her mother 
for the stage, began her career at the age of seven. 
. . 'Recently in Philadelphia she was arrested for 
gross immorality and sent to the House of Refuge, 
having been pronounced by the court utterly depraved/ 

"No. 2. 'A little girl of nine who, after a year or 
two on the stage, was taken in charge by the society, 
to save her from utter degradation. She had already 
become morally pervertet.' 

"No. 3. 'A girl of fifteen, on the stage in New 
York . . . eloped with an actor and became a 
mother before she was sixteen. Later she became an 
inmate of a house of ill-fame, and at the age of twenty- 
two committed suicide by shooting herself.' 

"The report of the National Child Labor Committee 
states that such instances as the above could be multi- 
plied almost indefinitely" (Central Christian Advocate, 
September 7, 1910). 

Attendance at the theater, so demoralizing to the 
public, and so destructive of virtue to the stage itself, 
must be absolutely avoided by all who are determined 
to be pure in thought and character. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 149 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Christ in Government. 

Christ in government is a new idea. It is foreign to 
present political thinking. Not to mention religion, 
much less Christ Himself, even morality has been ex- 
cluded from politics. 

Hon. Eli F. Ritter says : "There is a very large and 
influential school of political teachers who insist that 
morality, whatever it means, should not be connected 
in any way with politics or legislation, asserting that 
men cannot be made moral by legislation" (Moral Law 
and Civil Law, p. 45). 

Viewed from the foremost standpoint of present 
civilization, his quotation seems strange; but such has 
been the standard political teaching. John Stuart Mill 
declares: "Political economy is concerned with man 
solely as a being who desires wealth ... It makes 
entire abstraction of every other human passion and 
motive." Professor F. A. Walker says: "Political 
economy has to do with no other subject whatsoever 
than wealth ; especially should the student of econo- 
mics take care not to allow any purely political, ethi- 
cal or social considerations influence him in his 
investigations." 

This was the teaching in our colleges and political 
parties during the past generation. And it gave political 
thought and legislation an unmoral, if not immoral, 
character. 

Accordingly a foremost member of the United 
States Senate, the Hon. John Sherman, of Ohio, de- 
clared in his campaign address in 1873 : "All parties to 
be useful must be founded upon political ideas which 



150 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



affect the framework of our government . . . Ques- 
tions based upon temperance, religion and morality in 
all their multiplied forms, ought not to be the basis of 
parties . . . Religion, morality, etc., should be left 
to the individual conscience of men" (Cincinnati Gaz- 
ette). 

That is to say, a man moral as a private individual 
should discard morality on entering into community or 
public life ! Is it a matter of surprise, then, that com- 
mercial, municipal and political corruption prevails so 
generally? We are now reaping what has been sown. 

On the immoral fallacy of excluding morality from 
public life and confining it to private individual mat- 
ters, Chancellor Kent nobly observes: "We ought, 
not, therefore, to separate the science of public law 
from that of ethics, nor encourage the dangerous sug- 
gestion that governments are not so strictly bound by 
obligation of truth, justice and humanity, in relation to 
other powers, as they are in the management of their 
own local concerns. States, or bodies politic, are to 
be considered as moral persons, having a public will, 
capable and free to do right and wrong, inasmuch as 
they are collections of individuals, each of whom car- 
ries with him into the service of the community the 
same binding law of morality and religion which ought 
to control his conduct in private life" (Commentaries, 
Vol. I. [11th Edition], pp. 2, 3). 

Other eminent writers on law and economics rightly 
claim that public, municipal, national, and international 
transactions are under much greater moral obligation 
than those of private life, because of the greater in- 
terests involved and their wider influence (Woolsey). 

"On the other hand, there is a very large and influ- 
ential school that teaches that morality and religion are 
the same thing, who believe in the union of Church and 
state, and that politics and legislation should provide 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 151 



for and control matters of religion" (Moral Law and 
Civil Law, p. 46). 

In consequence of these opposite extremes, the one 
excluding morality and religion from politics and the 
other subjecting morality and religion to politics, the 
people at large are confused concerning the relation 
between morals and religion and their connection with 
politics and legislation. Doubt has been created. A 
clan of anarchists has risen denouncing all organized 
effort in both Church and state. Its foremost advocate 
is Herr Most, in his "Die Freiheit" [The Freedom], 
declaring: "Religion, authority and state are all carved 
out of the same piece of wood — to the devil with 
them all." 

With the multitude, this chaos of opinions obscures 
the truth. It is well said: "Out of this uncertainty 
comes a very dangerous sentiment creating the im- 
pression that as civil government cannot enforce mat- 
ters of religion and forms of religious worship, it can- 
not enforce matters of morality and moral conduct" 
(Moral Law and Civi. Law, p. 46). 

The tendency of all this has been to create an in- 
difference, if not direct opposition, to the enforce- 
ment of law. 

And to make matters still worse, the general neglect 
of ministers to preach the law of God and future retri- 
bution has weakened obligation and well-nigh de- 
stroyed the sense of sin. Of this, one of broad oppor- 
tunity and wide observation, Dr. J. M. Buckley, de- 
clares: "It oppresses us to believe, as we must, that 
the sense of God in personal experience is diminishing 
. . . Even from the evangelical churches the sense 
of sin in large measure departs" (Christian Advocate). 

This neglect on part of the ministers of religion 
meets merited rebuke from Chief Justice Brewer of 
the United States Supreme Court : "You ministers are 



152 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



making a fatal mistake in not holding forth before 
men, as prominently as the previous generation did, the 
retributive justice of God. You have fallen into a 
sentimental style of rhapsodizing over the love of God, 
and you are not appealing to that fear of future pun- 
ishment which your Lord and Master made such a 
prominent element in His preaching. And we are see- 
ing the effects of it in the widespread demoralization 
of private virtue and corruption of public conscience 
throughout the land." 

But still more insidious and destructive than this 
general neglect on part of ministers, is that position, 
boldly discarding, under guise of superior religion, the 
sovereipm; of God and the authority of His law, blur- 
ring the distinctions of right and wrong and condoning 
wilful transgression. 

The distinguished philosopher Borden P. Bowne, 
states this insidious and fatal heresy as follows : "We 
are fast displacing the entire conception of God as gov- 
ernor by the conception of God as father. And the 
conception of the Divine government is giving place 
to the conception of the Divine family . . . Our 
traditional categories of the saved and unsaved cannot 
be applied in any hard and fast manner . . . Men 
are not so much saved as they are becoming saved; 
and men are not so much lost as they are becoming 
lost . . . And sin itself, as we find it among men, 
is largely the wilfulness of freedom which has not 
learned self-control, rather than any deliberate choice 
of evil" (Studies in Christian Life, Z ion's Herald, 
1909). 

These statements flatly contradict these Scriptures, 
and are therefore false: 

The chief and first gospel motive is the Divine gov- 
ernment. 

1. "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 153 



the kingdom of God saying, "The time is fulfilled and 
the kingdom of God is at hand : repent ye, and believe 
the gospel (Mark 1:14, 15). "I must preach the 
kingdom of God to other cities also ; for therefore am I 
sent" (Luke 4:43). See Matt. 6:33. 

2. So the Twelve : "Then He called His twelve dis- 
ciples together . . . and He sent them to preach 
the kingdom of God and to heal the sick" (Luke 9 :2) ; 
(Matt. 10:5-8). 

3. Likewise the Seventy: "The Lord appointed 
other seventy also; and sent them two and two before 
His face into every city and place whither He Him- 
self would come . . . Heal the sick that are therein 
and say unto them, 'the kingdom of God is come nigh 
unto you' " (Luke 10 :1, 9). 

That God must cease to be absolute governor in 
order to be loving father, is a misconception of His 
character. At the same time, He is both absolute 
Governor and loving Father. 

The extent to which the aforementioned evil forces 
have spread private crime and public corruption, is 
alarming. It endangers the nation. In evidence, is 
the large increase in divorces, suicides and homicides ; 
betrayal of trust in high places of government, of busi- 
ness, and of honor, implicating congressmen, legisla- 
tors, business corporations, municipalities, poli- 
ticians and federal citizens [in two counties of South- 
ern Ohio over 3,000 voters have been disfranchised 
for five years with added fines in some cases, as penalty 
for selling and buying votes — [these cases are not ex- 
ceptional]. Another bad effect is the gambling craze. 
Mr. Chauncey M. Depew declares that "this vice is 
growing with tremendous rapidity all over the earth, 
and especially among civilized nations . . . We 
bet on everything . . . We create artificial conditions 
and bet upon them. We do the same with real estate, 



154 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



and we now bet in a different way upon our amuse- 
ments. Our baseball system has become a lottery, and 
betting grows in these respects and on races and cards 
all over the world . . . In clubs and private houses, 
games of chance of every kind with wagers upon re- 
sults are becoming as common as the daily dinner." 

On this vice of gambling Mr. Anthony Comstock, 
in 1890, found "One hundred and twenty-eight per- 
sons shot or stabbed over gambling tables; four were 
stabbed and five shot at poker; twelve were stabbed 
and twenty-four shot over the game of craps with 
dice; twenty-five were stabbed and fifty-five shot over 
gaming tables. Besides these, six attempted suicide, 
twenty-four committed suicide, and sixty were mur- 
dered in cold blood." 

President White, Cornell University, observes : 
"The readiness of individuals to take life on the slight- 
est pretexts is one of the most serious symptoms in 
this country. There is no civilized land in which mur- 
ders are committed with such impunity. Hence there 
is no civilized land in which murders are so frequent. 

The divorce evil is appalling. In 1909 there was 
one divorce for every twelve marriages in the United 
States. This is the average. The state of Nebraska 
is reported as having one divorce for every six mar- 
riages (Central Christian Advocate, January 18, 
1911). 

Statistics gave Germany 11,000 divorces in 1903, 
and the United States 72,062 in 1906. And there has 
been a rapid increase ever since. The family is the 
basis of the nation; therefore this disintegration of 
the American family forecasts the downfall of the 
American nation. Our danger is not from abroad. 
"If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its 
author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



155 



live through all time or die by suicide" (Abraham 
Lincoln). 

The social arbiter, Frederick Townsend Martin, 
who "knows American and European society through 
and through, has been the host of royalty, the asso- 
ciate of aristocrats," alluding to the American home 
of forty years ago, says : "The Bible is no longer real ; 
religion has lost its hold ; the constitution and laws 
are trampled upon by the rich and powerful, and are 
no longer held sacred by the poor and weak" . . . 
"That decay has set in, I know . . . "It is a mel- 
ancholy fact that the impetus toward extravagance, 
excess, idleness, debauchery and shamelessness came 
to us from the underworld." 

It is no compliment to American society that the 
suggestive, questionable styles of fashion are dictated 
by the "underworld" women of Paris. 

Our national decay is asserted by Ralph Waldo 
Emerson: "I confess our later generation appears un- 
girt, frivolous . . . The religion of seventy years 
ago was an iron belt to the mind, giving it construc- 
tion and force . . . Now men fall abroad, want 
polarity — suffer in character and intellect ... To 
a self-denying, ardent church . . . has succeeded 
a cold, intellectual race who analyze the prayer and 
psalm of their forefathers, and the more intellectual 
reject every yoke of authority ... In religion, 
too, we are fast losing or have already lost, our old 
reverence" (North American Review). 

Dr. James H. Potts gives the following character- 
ization : "Divorce excess is only one of the bad symp- 
toms cropping out in our national life. It matches well 
with such evils as commercial dishonesty, wild specu- 
lation, gambling, drunkenness and the prevalent ir- 
religion of every form and name. The American peo- 
ple .. . are tossed about by the winds of false 



156 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



doctrine, and are venturing far from the tried and 
true, sound and valuable old ways of faith, sanity, 
serenity, contentment and reliability. They want to 
live without work, without restraint, without routine, 
and just make the moments hum with new experiences 
more and more exciting and farther and farther re- 
moved from the responsible, the constructive, the use- 
ful, and the redemptive. Not all the American people 
are of this spirit ; but many are. The blue books bulge 
with their names. Society news is swollen with their 
caperings. This is the trouble with our domestic life. 
We speculate in stocks, scramble for riches, neglect 
the church, chase after amusement, and go the whole 
length of the pace that kills" (Michigan Christian Ad- 
vocate, January 15, 1910). 

Such conditions of social, political and religious cor- 
ruption discarding family obligations, degrading the 
state, and demoralizing the Church, and doubting the 
Bible, may well excite the gravest apprehension for 
our future well-being. This pleasure seeking, self- 
centred effort instead of devotement to the public 
good, is sure to bring national disaster. It is this that 
caused the ruin of all past nations. Hence the warn- 
ing of the distinguished Hungarian patriot and states- 
man, Louis Kossuth, visiting America: "If shipwreck 
should ever befall your country, the rock upon which 
it will split, will be your devotion to your private in- 
terests at the expense of your duty to the state." 

And what gives still more might to the aforemen- 
tioned self-centering, law-defying forces of evil, is 
the statement, under the assumption of superior sanc- 
tity wherein "God will be so imminent that no inter- 
mediary will be needed," that the "new religion will 
not be based upon authority" (Charles W. Elliot). 

This statement discarding "authority" discards law; 
for without authority there cannot be law, and the 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 157 



necessary punishment of its defiant violators, conse- 
quently an end to all government and human welfare. 

This truth demonstrated by all history of civilized 
humanity is well expressed by the eminent French jur- 
ist and philosopher, Baron de Montesquieu : "The idea 
of a place of future rewards necessarily imports that 
there is a place of future punishment; and where the 
people hope for the one without a fear of the other, 
civil laws have no force" (Spirit of Law, p. 276). 

To avoid the catastrophe of national overthrow men 
have in good faith proclaimed 

Morality as the Remedy. 

Viewed from the standpoint of our former immoral 
political training, shown before, this seems quite reas- 
onable. From having no connection with politics to 
having complete control of politics, is certainly a long 
step in advance. But a clear view of what morality 
really is and of what its relation to religion is, will 
greatly clarify our investigation. 

"Moral, pertaining to those intentions and actions 
of which right and wrong, virtue and vice are predi- 
cated. 

"Morality, the relation of conformity or noncon- 
formity to the moral standard or rule; quality of an 
intention, a character, an action, a principle, or a sen- 
timent, when tried by the standard of right" (Web- 
ster). 

"Religion, the outward act or form by which men 
indicate their recognition of the existence of a god or 
of gods having power over their destiny, to whom 
obedience, service and honor are due" (Webster). 

"Religion refers to the inner life and belief. Re- 
ligion requires a man to love his neighbor as himself, 
but the civil law cannot compel him to do so, and pun- 
ish him if he does not. 

"Morality requires a man to treat his neighbor hon- 



158 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



estly and fairly; and can compel him to do so, and 
punish him if he does not. 

"Religion is a matter of belief ; morality is a matter 
of conduct. The law does not interfere with matters 
of belief, but does undertake to control matters of 
conduct" (Moral Law and Civil Law, p. 47). "Moral- 
ity is for this life only. Morality is purely a civil 
condition; refers to the citizen, to the individual in 
his relations to other people and society" (Moral Law 
and Civil Law, p. 50). 

The New York Court of Appeals declared: "Sound 
morality is the cornerstone of the social edifice" 
(Moral Law and Civil Law, p. 34). 

"The greatest object and purpose of civil govern- 
ment under our civilization is to promote and enforce 
good morals in the relations and transactions of its 
citizens" (Moral Law and Civil Law, p. 23). 

Knowledge, intelligence and morals are emphasized 
as the true basis in the constitutions of California, 
North Dakota, Tennessee, etc. 

But history proves that the rank of a nation de- 
pends upon its religion. For all individual, corporate 
and national evils, experience — so the word of God — 
proves true religion to be the sole remedy. 

True Religion the Remedy. 

The complete inefficiency of morality apart from re- 
ligion is affirmed by the immortal statesman, George 
Washington : "Reason and experience forbid us to ex- 
pect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of 
religious principle" (Farewell Address)^ True re- 
ligion creates true morality. Hence it is chief as a po- 
litical necessity. 

Accordingly the constitution of North Carolina — 
so that of Ohio in the same words— places it first 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 159 



among necessities to good government: "Religion, 
morality, and knowledge being necessary to good gov- 
ernment," etc. 

Likewise, Arkansas: Art. 2, Sec. 25, Constitution, 
1874: "Religion, morality, and knowledge being es- 
sential to good government, the General Assembly 
shall enact suitable laws to protect every religious de- 
nomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own 
mode of public worship" (Moral Law and Civil Law, 
p. 24). In the same way the constitution of Nebraska 
names the essentials to good government: "Religion, 
morality and knowledge." But the constitutions of 
some other states lay stress on "knowledge," "learn- 
ing," "intellectual improvement," etc., and make but 
little or no account of either religion or morality, lest 
these "get mixed with politics" (?) 

How far, if at all, religion and morality shall influ- 
ence politics and legislation, is an open question with 
the great majority of American citizens. 

Nevertheless, every notable stage of progress in 
American history is marked by the Christian religion 
and Christian morality. 

Strikingly manifest was this at our beginning when 
our Pilgrim progenitors fled from the oppressive mon- 
archies of Europe to these wild shores, to found a 
free government with least hindrance and most helps 
to human progress. 

Their covenant read: "In the name of God, Amen! 
We whose names are underwritten . . . have un- 
dertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of 
the Christian Faith ... to plant the first colony 
. . . do by these presents solemnly and mutually in 
the presence of God and one another covenant and 
combine ourselves together into a civil body politic 
for our better ordering and preservation and further- 
ance of the ends aforesaid." Their Colonial legisla- 



160 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



tion shows religion to have been the chief consider- 
ation. 

During one hundred and fifty years of Colonial and 
Commonwealth history, British deism and French in- 
fidelity made such inroads that when the Federal Con- 
stitution was adopted there was therein no reference 
whatever to God. 

Nevertheless, stalwart men in the pulpit, like Dr. 
John Mason, who rebuked the exclusion of God from 
the National Constitution, and in the United States 
Congress, conserved the Christian faith; peerless 
among whom was George Washington. A key to his 
Christian character is that, when others stood during 
prayer by the chaplain at the first Continental Con- 
gress, he knelt. 

Guizot, the French statesman and historian^ says of 
him: "Of all great men, Washington was the most 
virtuous." The British historian, Green, declares of 
him: "No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront 
of a nation's life." Patrick Henry styled him: "The 
greatest man on that floor" [Congress]. The most il- 
lustrious king of that time, Frederick II. of Prussia, 
characterized General Washington's strategy on the 
Delaware as: "The most brilliant achievement re- 
corded in military annals," and sent him a sword in- 
scribed: "From the oldest general in Europe to the 
greatest general in the world." The discriminating his- 
torian of America, George Bancroft, declares: "But 
for Washington s the country could not have achieved 
its independence ; but for him it could not have formed 
its union." 

Only such Christian character could withstand and 
overmatch the flings of the embittered Voltaire and 
the daring assaults of the infidel, Thomas Payne, 
staunch patriot as he was. 

As time went on, American religious thought be- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



161 



came confused and the public conscience blunted by 
wwmoral politics, discarding both religion and moral- 
ity, flooding the country and rising into the United 
States Senate, where Daniel Webster, rising in com- 
manding form, declared: "The State must take its 
ground upon its religion." 

But for the "Great Awakening" under Jonathan 
Edwards and the "Wesleyan Reformation" under 
John Wesley and his associates, religious doubt and 
moral decay would have ruined the country. 

Our national demoralization brought Divine pun- 
ishment by the fratricidal war of the early "Sixties," 
when a galaxy of Christian statesmen appeared — Lin- 
coln, Seward, Sumner, Wilson, Chase, et al. 

In this increased light from heaven, the ship of 
state "righted about," enthroning God and Christ, as 
did the Pilgrims in the Colonial days. Politics rose 
again to the rank of statesmanship. 

In the ante-bellum political contest, the majestic 
Sumner [1851] declared: "Those everlasting rules of 
right and wrong which are a law to individuals and 
communities. True politics is simply morals applied 
to public affairs." And when politicians attempted to 
obscure the increased light with their interpretation of 
the Federal Constitution, the eminent Secretary of 
State, William H. Seward, declared: "There is a 
higher law than the Constitution" 

Under the increasing religious light upon our sins 
and the forebodings of Divine retribution, the United 
States Senate, in 1863, enacted the following: "De- 
voutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just 
Government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men 
and nations, and calling on the people in this day of 
trouble, by the assurance of His word to seek Him for 
succour, according to His appointed way through 
Jesus Christ," etc. Additionally the President, Abra- 



162 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



ham Lincoln, issued a special proclamation appointing 
a given day for fasting and prayer, that the Divine 
retribution might be averted and the Union preserved. 
He also recognized Christ as Lord. 

Like the action of the Senate, the proclamation of 
the President of the United States sanctioned the sov- 
ereignty of God and the intercessory rule of Christ. 
All this restored the American people to their original 
position to conduct affairs "for the glory of God and 
the advancement of the Christian faith." And the 
favor of God was so great that in ten years the nation 
rose to such a pitch of power and wealth as to amaze 
ourselves and astonish the world. 

But the spiritual progress of the Church did not 
keep pace with the financial advancement of the state. 
In consequence, general American society became en- 
slaved to the love of money and to the greed of lux- 
ury — a general bondage greater than the local bond- 
age of negro slavery. Both Greece and Rome had 
human slavery ; but it was the love of money and the 
lusts of luxury that wrought the ruin of those great 
empires. Sparta was ruled by seven hundred families, 
and owned by one hundred of them. "Avarice and 
luxury have been the ruin of every great state" (Livy) . 
And our greed for wealth and luxury is ominous. 

The rush for pelf and pleasure is tremendous. Even 
the great storm-centre of these forces sounds the 
alarm. The Wall Street Journal of New York City, 
speaking of "What makes a great nation," said a few 
days since : "We need a revival of pure old-time reli- 
gion; we have had enough quackery in religions and 
political cure-alls, but as ever, 'righteousness exalteth a 
nation,' and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
wisdom" (Central Christian Advocate, January 18, 
1911). 

In this revival of pure religion, New Testament 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 163 



Christianity is our only hope ; for truly, as the eminent 
jurist and German economist, Wilhelm Roscher, de- 
clares : "We may boldly assert there never was a nation 
remarkable for its religiousness and morality, which 
declined so long as it preserved these highest of all 
goods" (Political Economy, Vol. L, p. 387). 

Nothing short of New Testament Christianity will 
deliver us from immoral class-distinctions and class- 
legislation. "Immoral," I say; for, "immoral wants 
are not only those, the satisfaction of which wounds 
the conscience, but also those in which the necessities 
of the soul are postponed to the affording of super- 
fluities of the body, and when the enjoyment of the 
few is purchased at the expense of the many" 
(Roscher, Political Economy, Vol. L, p. 222). 

These immoral class-discriminations are illustrated 
in the following facts: (1) "Women in Chicago make 
twelve shirts for seventy-five cents, finding their own 
thread ; and finish an elegant cloak for four cents ! And 
children work twelve hours a day for one dollar a 
week" (Frances E. Willard). 

(2) "In the United States are eighty thousand boys 
and girls under sixteen working in textile factories ; 
twenty thousand of them are under twelve years of 
age. Seven thousand and five hundred children work 
in glass factories. A child of four years was at work 
in a New York canning factory." 

(3) "Twelve thousand children work in tobacco 
factories. Children of three years straighten out to- 
bacco leaves; and of four years place covers upon 
paper boxes. The children are tied in their chairs, so 
that, falling into a sleep, they will not fall off 
upon the floor and injure themselves." 

(4) "A little girl of five years was seen in the 
spindle room of a southern mill working at 2 a. m. 
Their fingers are sometimes crushed in the machinery. 



164 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



A doctor in a southern mill city admitted that he had 
amputated over one hundred — some, small baby fin- 
gers, as the size denoted." 

(5) Apartment wrongs: "A New York clergyman 
testifies: 'I went into a room ten by twelve feet, in 
which were eighteen people — men, women and chil- 
dren. They ate, lived and slept in that room !' In St. 
Louis four young Syrian workmen with families lived 
in one room. Three were married and had six chil- 
dren among them. Formerly they had occupied dif- 
ferent rooms. But, winter coming, no work on streets 
was to be had, to obtain money to pay rentals, so they 
all gathered together in one room. The women and 
children were barefooted, while snow was on the 
ground and cold blasts of wind came through the rick- 
ety door" (Church and Social Problem, p. 57). 

Such conditions outrage civilization, not to name 
Christianity. We legislate against cruelty to animals, 
but overlook cruelty to our own kind. And all this 
is charged against the Church — and not without show 
of justice; for the Church moulds the conscience and 
guards the welfare of the public. "Whether right or 
wrong, the laboring men feel that the churches are 
not their friends; that they are for the rich; that 
money controls the pulpit and the pew ; that preachers, 
as a rule, either do not care for the rights of the labor- 
ing man or that they dare not plead his cause" (Church 
and Social Problem, p. 79). 

In consequence, some revert to atheism, declaring: 
"The idea of God must be destroyed ; it is the key- 
stone of a perverted civilization" (Marx). 

It is gratifying to know that the laboring men as a 
class retain faith in Christ, although they have lost 
faith in the Church in general. "Working men be- 
fore the United States Senate Committee on Labor 
said: 'Working men do not attend Church, not be- 



I 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 165 



cause they are irreligious or opposed to Christianity, 
but because the churches have ceased to represent to 
us the teachings of Christianity" (Selected). 

Self-Protection Organized. 

Self-protection is a natural, inalienable right. It 
has been styled nature's first law. It denotes distrust, 
and implies a foe. 

As mankind advances from a savage to a civilized 
state, and from a lower to a higher stage in civiliza- 
tion, different employments multiply, and society di- 
vides into distinct classes with an ever-growing inter- 
dependence. Lack of mutual consideration leads to 
minimizing this interdependence and to magnifying 
the professional differences. As a consequence, com- 
petition alienates industrial classes to the injury of 
society; whereas, mutual co-operation would unite all 
industries in promoting the public welfare. 

But co-operation implies mutual confidence; and 
mutual confidence implies trustworthy character on 
part of all interested parties. 

In absence of this character, distrust of necessity 
will exist; and different classes and different indus- 
tries will organize for self-defense. "Capitalists were 
allowed to combine from the beginning, and workmen 
were prohibited under severe penalties" (Outlines 
Economics, p. 36). 

"Guilds monopolized the employments. Non-guild 
workmen were debarred from employment. So, work- 
ing secretly, these combined and broke the machines. 
And a law was passed punishing this act with death" 
(Outlines Economics, p. 37). 

Under the domination of general distrust, it was 
thought that public good would result from one class 
being matched against another — holding opposing in- 
terests in poise. Adam Smith, styled "the father of 



166 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



economics," held that: "Self-interest would regulate 
men's relations for the public good." 

This theory dominated business for a century. And 
"many men perpetrated audacious frauds, got wealthy 
and retired when found out" (Outlines Economics, 
p. 45). "Competition among employers, ever dictating 
harder terms to their men" caused trades-unions to 
multiply secretly ever since 1304 A. D. "Competition 
did not tolerate the law of benevolence." Adam 
Smith's theory of self-interest proved a failure. Under 
increased light, sentiment changed to the public good 
as the goal of society. 

Trades-unions and farmers' alliances now multiplied 
rapidly. "All labor against all capital" (Economics., 
p. 189) issued in "strikes" on part of working men and 
"lock-outs" on part of employers. The latter debarred 
workmen from employment. 

It has been said that "Strikes — compulsory arbitra- 
tion — created more troubles than it settled" (President 
Hadley, Economics, p. 359). Possibly the increased 
troubles may have come of increased light on wrongs 
exposed by the strikes. "The street car men of Balti- 
more by a strike reduced the seventeen hours a day 
labor down to twelve hours" (Outlines Economics, 
p. 191). 

"Between 1880 and 1887 the total number of strikes 
[European and American] was 22,304. Of these the 
majority were ordered by labor unions. Of this ma- 
jority, 10,000 were successful ; 3,000 were partial fail- 
ures ; 9,304 were total failures. The total loss to em- 
ployers was $30,000,000, and to workmen $52,000,000. 
During the same period, "lockouts" by employers 
numbered 2,214. Of these 1,753 were ordered by or- 
ganizations; 564 were successful; 190 partially so; 
1,339 were total failures. And the loss to employers 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



167 



was $3,462,261; to employees, $8,157,717" (Revised 
Encycl. Brittanica, Vol. XVII., p. 5,595). 

Another indication of good resulting from strikes is 
the increase of wages for fewer hours' work. In the 
seventeen great industries: 1850, $247; 1860, $284; 
1870, $302; 1880, $347; 1890, $445; we have the in- 
crease of wages from $247 to $445. 

In America caste forms on the lines of wealth and 
occupation, and, more marked than all else, on "color." 
Race prejudice is a serious problem. That this should 
deprive one of his personal rights and bar apprecia- 
tion of his rise into noble character, is without reason 
in philosophy and religion. Were the blondes among 
women to organize a guild against the brunettes — how 
silly! Yet by custom and legislation we discriminate, 
with as little reason, very unjustly against persons 
simply because of color or sex. This will be discussed 
later on. 

The optimistic President James A. Garfield portrays 
the freedom of privilege in American society in his 
day: "There is no horizontal stratification of society 
in this country like the rocks in the earth, that hold 
one class down below for evermore, and let another 
come to the surface and stay there forever. Our 
stratification is like the ocean, where from depths of 
the mighty deep any drop may come up to glitter on 
the highest wave that rolls" (Social Elements, p. 281). 

President Garfield was himself that "drop come 
from the depths of the mighty deep to glitter on the 
highest wave that rolls." From the humblest Ameri- 
can home he brooked poverty and rose to the highest 
place of power and of honor, that of President of the 
United States, where his illustrious character will glit- 
ter while ages roll. 

"Strikes" and "lockouts" have been economic dy- 
namite disengaging self-centred men and sore-op- 



\ 



168 CHRIST IN ETHICS 

pressed men from fossilized wrong, to ascend the 
scale of moral excellence. Higher the civilization, less 
the dynamite. 

In the United States "strikes" and "lock-outs" fur- 
nish the following data, as given by Carroll D. Wright, 
United States Commissioner of Labor: "Strikes have 
occurred ever since 1741. From January 1, 1881, to 
June 30, 1894 — thirteen-and-a-half years — there oc- 
curred strikes in 69,167 establishments, and lockouts 
in 6,067 establishments. There were thrown out of 
work by strikes 3,714,406 workmen; - by lockouts, 
366,690. 

"The average duration of strikes was twenty-five 
days; of lockouts, forty-seven days. Forty-four and 
a half per cent of the strikes and forty and one-third 
per cent, of the lockouts were successful. Their de- 
mands were granted. Forty-four and one-half per 
cent, of the strikes and forty-seven and three-quarter 
per cent, of the lockouts failed of success. 

"During these thirteen and one-half years [1881- 
1894] the loss to workmen by strikes was $164,000,- 
000; by lockouts, $26,685,576, total $190,492,382, or 
an average of $44 to each workman. 

"The loss to employers by strikes was $82,500,000; 
by lockouts, $12,235,000; total, $94,735,000" (Prac- 
tical Sociology, pp. 289-293). 

While these figures tell the tremendous waste of re- 
sources, they cannot portray the suffering from men- 
tal anxiety and loss of lives. 

Illustrating this last point is the statement of the 
Christian Advocate of December 22, 1904: "Between 
January 1, 1902, and June 30, 1904, 180 persons were 
killed in strikes in this country; 1,651 were injured 
and 5,533 were arrested. The following is the table 
of the killed, injured and arrested : 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



169 





Killed 


Injured 


Arrested 




...... 116 


1366 


374 




51 


151 


5159 


Officers , 


13 


134 




Total 


, 180 


1651 


5533 



Later: "During last July, August and September 
[1904] eighteen were killed, 315 injured, and 581 were 
arrested, making a total for two years and nine months , 
of 198 killed, of whom 125 were non-union men, and 
1,966 injured, of whom 1,626 were non-union men. 
The total number of arrested was 6,114, of whom 415 
were non-union men, and 5,699 were union strikers." 

From the frequent occurrence of strikes and lock- 
outs till now, costing the loss of lives and of millions 
of money on part of employers and employees, it is 
quite evident that organized self-defense cannot rem- 
edy the evils of social, industrial and political life. 

Before leaving this point, the question of social and 
economical unjust discrimination because of sex, in- 
troduced above, merits a broader consideration under 
the head of 

Woman's Disadvantage. 
By their fall in Eden, man and woman lost complete 
harmony of spirit and poise of interests. Falling from 
union with God, they fell also from union with each 
other. Destined to complement each other (1 Cor. 
11 :11, 12), sin made them self-centred. And the man, 
being the stronger for leadership (Eph. 5:23), has 
gotten the better of the woman through perverted 
leadership. 

To lead and yet not oppress is the unsolved prob- 
lem. It is God-like. God leads Christ (John 12:50), 
but does not oppress Him: "The Father hath com- 
mitted all judgment unto the Son, that all men should 



170 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



honor the Son even as they honor the Father" (John 
5:23). This is the very opposite of oppression. 

And that holy reciprocal relation between Christ 
and God is the pattern for woman's relation to man: 
"I would have you know that the head of every man 
is Christ; and the head of every woman is the man; 
and the head of Christ is God" (1 Cor. 11:3). And 
to restore man to, and perfect him in, the Divine 
union in which each, without reserve, gives to the 
other his entire personality and possessions (John 
16:15; 17:10), is accomplished through Christ's 
atonement : "That they all may be one ; as thou, Father, 
art in me and I in thee; that they also may be one 
in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent 
me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given 
them ; that they may be one even as we are one : I in 
them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into 
one; and that the world may know that thou hast 
sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me" 
(John 17:21-23). And apart from this experimental 
change in human nature, God's ideal for man and 
woman is impossible of realization. 

Nevertheless, ignorant of this Divine provision or 
ignoring it, philosophers and philanthropists have, 
through the ages, tried by human wisdom to restore 
human society to normal condition. 

A notable example of this was Plato's Republic 
[427 B. C] with its common table of plain food for 
all citizens, rich and poor alike, supplied by the state, 
which owned and controlled, in birth and youthful 
training, and in occupation and marriage, every man 
and woman. 

Another remarkable example was the Utopia of Sir 
Thomas More [1478-1535 A. D.] Its order was: 

1. The community of goods. 

2. The distribution of profits. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 171 



3. Forbidding the use of money and ostentation. 

4. Taking meals in common. 

5. Limiting labor to six hours a day. 

6. All persons were laborers. 

It differed from Plato's Republic (1) in there being 
no community of wives, (2) in the husband not own- 
ing his wife as chattel property. 

In modern times very many have been the efforts 
[some say one hundred and forty] to bring society up 
to normal standard, but all have failed. 

To find her under the greatest disadvantage we 
must see 

Woman in Paganism. 

She was regarded as belonging to an order lower 
than man ; as not having a soul like his ; as not being 
immortal unless united to some man; as being an in- 
carnation of evil ; as being too impure for human sac- 
rifice to the gods (cannibal Sandwich Islands) ; as 
chattel property of her husband to be used, sold or 
loaned; as incapable of improvement; as not owning 
her own person. 

To all of these there are notable and some noble 
exceptions. Yet even Plato with his surpassing spirit- 
ual culture and moral insight still allowed man's as- 
sumed owning of woman as a chattel. 

In Mahommedanism woman's condition is but little 
improved. She is regarded as by nature inferior to 
man ; as a servant to satisfy his wants, prejudices, and 
desires; as disqualified for acts of public worship or 
entrance within the mosque. Morally as well as so- 
cially she is the property of her husband. The Koran 
fixes her rank subordinate to man : "Men are superior 
to women on account of the qualities with which God 
hath gifted the one above the other; and on account 
of the outlay they make from their substance for 
them" (Koran, Sura IV., verse 38). 



172 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



When that most eminent of early Scotch mission- 
aries, Dr. Alexander Duff, first landed in India in 
1830, he was so struck with the abject condition of 
Hindu women that he, it is said, declared : "You might 
as well try to scale a wall 500 yards high as attempt 
female education in India." 

Twenty-five years of faithful missionary effort 
broke the fetters from Hindu women; and Zenana 
education by heroic missionary women opened the way 
to the girls' school from which a few, daring derision 
and loss of friends, began to enter the high school and 
then the university. 

Only twenty-eight years after the statement attrib- 
uted to Dr. Duff, we have this record : "A native lady, 
Ayachee Ammal, sister of the honorary surgeon, Aro- 
kiam Pillay, of the Mysore service, has passed the 
matriculation examination, and is the first native lady 
who has passed in Bangalore. 

Increasing hunger for higher education now spread 
rapidly among Hindu young women ; and in the early 
eighties brilliant-minded young women began to sur- 
pass young men in university honors. 

In 1882, "at the annual distribution of prizes at the 
Madras Medical College, one of the prize-takers was 
a young native lady from the Bombay Presidency, who 
carried away the first prize for materia medica, and the 
second prize for anatomy." 

In 1884 Miss Chundra Mukhi Bose, B. A., had the 
degree of M. A. conferred upon her by the university. 

In 1885 "The Times of India" gave this record: 
"Miss Avabai Merwanjee Bhownuggree has creditably 
passed an examination at Cambridge. This is the first 
instance in which a Parsee lady has passed an examin- 
ation at one of the seats of learning in England." 

About the same time another Parsee young woman, 
Miss Cornelia Sorabjee, B. A., the first lady graduate 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 173 



of the Bombay University, and daughter of Rev. Mr. 
Sorabjee [Church Missionary Society] has been ap- 
pointed a Dukshna Fellow of the Gugurat College on 
rupees 100 [about $50] per mensem. 

The mother of this young lady is one of the most 
accomplished Hindu ladies. Her oratorical powers 
attracted large audiences in England during her recent 
visit to that country (Eastern Star). The foregoing 
cases have led the way for hundreds during the last 
twenty-five years 

But high over all is the distinguished Pandita Rama- 
bai. Among her earliest recollections is that of her 
mother teaching her Sanscrit. She committed to mem- 
ory 20,000 verses of Hindu philosophy. She broke 
caste by mingling with other people, and further sinned 
by choosing her own husband. When professor of 
Sanscrit in Cheltenham College she accepted Christ 
(Condensed from Frances Willard). 

In the classical languages, with several Hindu 
tongues, and a deep insight into the Scriptures, she is 
well equipped to furnish a pure and accurate transla- 
tion of the Bible into Marathi. Pundita denotes her 
profound knowledge of philosophy as well as philol- 
ogy. For scholarship and philosophical research, it 
is a question whether Christianity in India can pre- 
sent her equal. 

And better than all else, she is a profound teacher 
and a trustworthy witness of Christian Perfection set 
forth in the New Testament. Her immense orphanage 
is an industrial success and a marvel of spiritual 
triumph. 

Woman in India, despite all disadvantages and dis- 
abilities of hoary custom and biased legislation, has 
proved herself the peer of man in India or elsewhere. 

From Paganism in China there are similar trophies. 



174 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



There are at least five young women who can repeat 
from memory the entire New Testament. 

The distinguished Chinese surgeon of "acknowledged 
ability," Miss Mary Stone, M. D., graduated from the 
University of Michigan, is a noble example of the 
hundreds of young women in China, who break 
through every embargo to seize the rights of true 
womanhood. Dr. Stone has charge of the Elizabeth 
Skelton Danforth Memorial Hospital [100 or more 
beds] in Kiukiang, Central China. 

And Japan will allow no peer in progress of woman. 
When the first college for women was opened, eight 
hundred young women, it is said, rushed into its halls. 

Woman in Paganism has risen above every disad- 
vantage, and proved herself the peer of man. In 
some points she excels him; and in some points he ex- 
cels her. They are not identical, but equal — peers per- 
fecting each other. 

We may now consider some disadvantages of 
Woman a n Christendom. 

(1) Less than a hundred years ago a professing 
Christian might sell his wife ! Dr. Dorchester gives an 
account of "A gentleman in this country, in 1815, hav- 
ing access to not a very large number of English 
sources of information, found in a single year thirty- 
nine instances of wives exposed to public sale, like 
cattle, at Smithfield" (Problem Religious Progress, 
p. 219). 

On the same page he quotes a British periodical, 
"The New Monthly Magazine," for September, 1814, 
as follows : "Shropshire — A well-looking woman, wife 
of John Hall, to whom she had been married only one 
month, was brought by him in a halter, and sold by 
auction in the market, for two and sixpence, with the 
addition of sixpence for the rope with which she was 
led" (Our Country, p. 5). 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 175 



Two things here are astonishing : first, that an Eng- 
lishman should sell his wife; and secondly, that he 
should sell her so cheaply. As to the first, it must 
be understood of the lower class in abject poverty; 
and as to the second point, it seems evident that there 
was no demand for that kind of property. Mr. Hall 
received for his wife "two and sixpence," that is two 
shillings and sixpence — American money, about sixty- 
two and one-half cents. In that day it was not un- 
usual for Englishmen of that low class to sell their 
wives into bondage. 

But what is still more astonishing than all this, is 
the fact that Americans, not of a low, poverty-stricken 
class, but highly cultured, educated and wealthy, 
should sell wives ! Wives of men whom they held in 
slavery, sometimes parting asunder mothers from their 
own children. And Americans continued to do this 
until the Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, President 
of the United States, in 1863, abolished human 
slavery. 

Out of the degradation of slavery, daughters of 
these freed men, by the thousands, have risen over 
poverty and prejudice, into notable womanhood and 
good scholarship. 

Russian custom in the Seventeenth Century at- 
tests woman's degraded condition then in the Greek 
Catholic Church. Dr. Collins, physician to the Czar 
in 1670, declares: "The Russian custom to tie up 
wives by the hair and flogging them, begins to be 
left off." 

(2) Woman's disadvantage in America is manifest 
in the following facts from Colonial times to the 
present : 

In 1638 a few devout clergymen, "from dread of 
leaving an illiterate ministry in the churches," founded 
"Harvard College." But no provision was made for 



176 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



common school education ; much less was any thought 
given to the education of women. It was 153 years 
later [1791] before any provision was made for wo- 
man's common school education. 

"Householders' School for Boys was established in 
Massachusetts in 1644, six years after the founding of 
Harvard College for clergymen ; but it was 145 years 
[1789] before girls were allowed to enter even the 
primary school. Not until 1828, thirty-nine years later, 
were girls allowed in all the grades in the primary 
schools." 

Woman continued to suffer many legislated disabili- 
ties, when Mrs. Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, 
in 1848, demanded the same privileges before the law 
as men had. 

The unyielding grip of blind prejudice against wo- 
mankind among legislators in that day is manifest in 
the following incident: 

In 1848 our Government did not grant pensions to 
women whose husbands had given their lives for the 
nation. And "Mother" Bickerdyke, of the West, from 
that time forward for eighteen years, "gave her life to 
this work," when in 1866 the Government gave her a 
pension, but refused her all back-pension. 

(3) When our public schools came into being, they 
were not meant for girls ; the education of women be- 
ing regarded as of little consequence. But she had 
from an early day a strong advocate in the heroic Dr. 
Charles Elliott, LL.D., many years editor of the West- 
ern Christian Advocate, Cincinnati, Ohio. He did 
much to bring about the founding of the Cincinnati 
Female College in 1850. 

Among the objections strongly urged against wom- 
an's higher education, at that time, were: (1) "If 
educated, she will preach; (2) She is physically dis- 
qualified to bear the strain." 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 177 



That highly educated men as well as other people 
were bitterly opposed to higher education for women, 
the following incident shows, as related by Dr. E. O. 
Haven, professor in the University of Michigan in 
1853 : "I said the university ought to be open alike to 
men and women. A fellow professor declared that 
I was 'crazy.' But in sixteen years I saw that univer- 
sity opened to women by the legislature." 

When Vassar College was opened, a prominent 
woman voiced the general feeling when she said : "The 
mere fact that it is called a college for women, is 
enough to condemn it. Of one thing we may be sure, 
no refined, Christian mother will ever send her daugh- 
ter to Vassar College/' 

See, that "prominent woman" thought very erron- 
eously that the daughter of a "refined, Christian 
mother" would sacrifice her refinement — womanly 
modesty, and become somewhat coarse, "mannish," if 
she obtained a college education. 

(4) At the present time the younger people can form 
no conception of the intensity and the breadth of the 
disadvantages imposed upon women of the past gen- 
eration. The writer recalls the day when only men 
and boys drove a team of horses, and for a woman to 
drive out in a buggy, was to press the limit of mod- 
esty and seem "mannish." Strange as it now ap- 
pears, yet, in the past, modesty and immodesty, even 
right and wrong, have, in some measure, been matters 
of mere custom, without reason or religion. 

"In Texas a husband can sell everything, regardless 
of his wife's protest. He can collect her bank account 
— money she may have earned outside the home. This 
is so in some other states" (L. J. Terry, Woman's Na- 
tional Daily, January 20, 1911). 

The average yearly earnings of men is given at $513 ; 



178 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



of women, $213. Colorado shows an average for men 
of $638 ; for women, $554. 

(5) Among school teachers, a like discrimination is 
made against women. Hon. W. T. Harris, United 
States Commissioner of Education, gives statistics of 
Barnstable County, Massachusetts, as follows: 

In 1840 men were paid per month, $20.28; women, 
$6.14. 

In 1860 men were paid per month, $40.73 ; women, 
$19.12. 

In 1866 men were paid per month, $53.60 ; women, 
$22.53. 

In 1890 men were paid per month, $68.18 ; women, 
$34.88. < 

Why is a man paid twice the salary that a woman 
receives? That, too, when all admit that she is the 
better teacher of children. Hence more than tzvo- 
thirds of the teachers of common schools are women. 

Can any reason be gven for this marked discrimina- 
tion against woman respecting remuneration for ser- 
vices? For shelter, food, and clothing, she pays fully 
as much as a man pays. And her education costs fully 
as much. 

The same is true of manufacturing establishments. 
For work as clerks, men are paid an average of $890 ; 
women, $462. 

As operatives in mechanical and manufacturing in- 
dustries, the earnings of men average $498 per 
annum; of women, $276 (Census of 1890). 

(6) United States Ex-Commissioner of Labor, Car- 
roll D. Wright, LL.D., giving reasons why so low 
wages are paid women, says : "She has been under so- 
cial, political, and intellectual subjection for centuries, 
and only recently has she been winning justice and 
recognition'' (Outlines of Practical Sociology, p. 216). 

The beginning of the Nineteenth Century marks a 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 179 

general revolution in public opinion respecting woman's 
rank and destiny. And by the middle of the century, 
her right to all privileges of education enjoyed by men, 
was achieved and generally acknowledged. And to- 
ward the end of the century all occupations were 
opened to her. In 1852 only seven occupations were 
open to women; but in 1892 over four hundred had 
already been actually entered. 

At the beginning of the Nineteenth Century it was 
thought rather "mannish" for a woman to teach a 
public school, because men only had been doing that; 
but by 1890 there were 246,066 women teaching in 
public schools, in colleges, and in universities. Over 
two-thirds of all teachers were women. And "in New 
England more than ninety-one per cent, are women" 
(U. S. Census, 1890). 

In 1895 there were over 451 colleges and universi- 
ties in this country. Of this number, 310 were co-edu- 
cational — open alike to men and women ; and 143 were 
colleges for women only. And nearly all the great 
universities of Europe were already opened to women. 
There are now [1910] 345 colleges and universities 
admitting men and women, and 162 colleges for 
women only. 

Points of Progress and Women of Special Honors. 

Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, Ph.D., LL.D., surviving the 
combat with woman's disadvantages, declares: "This 
world is not an easy place for a woman." She is su- 
perintendent of the schools of Chicago, on a salary of 
$10,000 a year. 

Professor Rena A. Michaels, A.M., Ph.D., Dean 
of the Woman's College of the Northwestern Uni- 
versity, has made her position a pronounced success. 



180 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



She is most esteemed and active member of the Amer- 
ican Association of Modern Languages. 

In 1909 Mrs. Lillian Mullen, of Walnut Hills, was 
awarded the highest honors in embalming at a state ex- 
amination in which forty-eight men competed. 

In 1896 full suffrage was granted to women in 
Utah and Idaho. Wyoming, Colorado and Washing- 
ton likewise grant to women national suffrage. 

In 1898 women in Ireland were given the right to 
vote for all offices except Parliament. "The state of 
Delaware gave the right of school-suffrage to all tax- 
paying women." And in 1900 Minnesota gave school 
suffrage to women, while West Australia granted full 
parliamentary suffrage to women, married or single. 

In 1901 Norway granted full parliamentary suf- 
frage to women. In 1902 full national suffrage was 
granted to all women of Federated Australia and state 
suffrage to the women of New South Wales, and 1903 
dates the gift of full state-suffrage to all women of 
Tasmania. And now English women, in augmenting 
numbers, are making unceasing and determined efforts 
to secure the right of parliament suffrage for women 
in Great Britain. 

All this does not reflect honor upon the United 
States for slow recognition of personal rights of 
women, notwithstanding our matchless wealth and ac- 
knowledged superior genius for invention and dis- 
covery. 

On the rights of married women we have been slow 
to lift from them grievous disadvantages and burdens 
wrongfully imposed. Before 1871 married women had 
no legal right to their own earnings ! Why ? "It took 
eleven years to get laws permitting women to own the 
garments they wore!" A wife's labor was unrecog- 
nized. It is somewhat so still. The carpenter or brick- 
layer is paid from $2 to $5 a day ; the housekeeper for 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 181 



cooking, cleaning, washing, sewing and mending, etc., 
etc., is paid from $2 to $5 a week. 

Yet, in spite of universal depreciation and debase- 
ment by the ruling sex, woman has suffered and 
wrought and reasoned her way into recognition as an 
intellectual, industrial, political, and religious factor, 
equal to man in solving the problems of Christian civ- 
ilization. 

This case will be stronger with the adding of a few 
more instances of note, and women of fame. 

"The original Declaration of Independence was 
printed by Mary Katharine Goddard, editor of 'The 
Gazette: " 

"Margaret Draper, of Boston, conducted the first 
newspaper in the United States." 

"Artificial marble is the invention of Madame 
Dutillet. ,, 

"Miss Lucy Johnson invented the seamless bag in 
1824, out of which others made a fortune." 

"The finest Swiss-made watches are by women ; and 
the largest flax mill in Europe is owned by a woman." 

"The largest foundry in Troy, N. Y., manufactures 
a horseshoe every three seconds, with a machine in- 
vented by a woman." 

"The invention of the cotton-gin is due to a woman, 
Mrs. Green ; but the patent was issued in the name of 
Eli Whitney. This invention has revolutionized the 
industries of the world" (Daughters of America, pp. 
643-653). 

As a sculptor, Harriet Hosmer became celebrated. 
And the colossal statue on the dome of the new state- 
house at Madison, Wisconsin, was designed and exe- 
cuted by a woman, Helen F. Mears. 

From one to three thousand women are lawyers. 
One thousand of these are in America. "One of these 
women, fifteen years ago, was a servant in the family 



182 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



of an Iowa farmer at $1.25 a week. To-day her in- 
come as a patent attorney is $10,000 a year ( Christian 
Standard, July, 1910). 

"Mrs. May G. Bellamy was chosen a member of the 
House of Representatives, state of Wyoming, at the 
last election (1910) — the first woman given this honor 
since Wyoming granted suffrage to women in 1869. 
About a score of women in other woman-enfranchised 
states have been members of the legislature, and one 
a member of the state senate" (Woman's Journal, Jan- 
uary 21, 1911). 

As journalists and writers, woman's success is a 
matter of universal knowledge. Only the other day, 
Miss Florence A. Lincoln, of RadclifTe College, gradu- 
ated from the Boston Normal School, at the head of 
her class; in 1906, excelled Harvard men, sixteen in 
number, and five other Radcliffe girls, for the Craig 
prize of $250 for dramatic composition (W. C. A., 
January 25, 1911). 

The medical profession records woman's success in 
materia medica and in surgery. 

"No fewer than 698 lady doctors have been gradu- 
ated from the Medical Academy for Women at St. 
Petersburg. There are 700 women practicing medi- 
cine in Russia." This is the record for 1894. And in 
1892 there were about 150 registered and practicing 
physicians in Great Britain. 

In the United States there are, it is said, 9,000 
women who are physicians and surgeons. "The noted 
surgeon of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico 
Railway is Dr. Sophie Herzog. When this railway 
was building, times were exciting, as evidenced by a 
necklace of twenty-three bullets, each one of which 
was extracted from a wounded man by Dr. Herzog 
herself ; twenty-two of the men are living testimony 
of her skill" (Cleveland Press, January 20, 1911). 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



183 



Dr. Yamei Kin, the most distinguished woman in 
China, is Principal of Imperial Pei-Yang Woman's 
Medical School and Dispensary at Tien-Tsin. She 
speaks nine Chinese dialects, and Japanese and Eng- 
lish. 

Now we have 9,000 women as physicians. But fifty- 
eight years ago [1842] the prejudice was such that no 
landlord in New York would rent rooms to Dr. Eliza- 
beth Blackwell, who had just taken her M. D. She 
was compelled to buy a house to begin practice. 

Big must be written on the roll of honor the name 
of Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes, first in moral courage 
among the wives of the national Presidents. In har- 
mony with the wish of President Rutherford B. Hayes, 
she banished intoxicating liquors from the Presidential 
table, albeit the public press alleged that it showed dis- 
respect to the ambassadors and the ministers repre- 
senting other nations ; that it would provoke war with 
foreign powers ; that it was a disregard for national 
custom, etc. 

But she was from Ohio, where the anti-saloon cru- 
sade was born, and could read the moral sentiment of 
the nation, which by her heroic action was greatly 
strengthened. 

Statuary Hall in the capitol at Washington is hon- 
ored by the statue of Miss Frances E. Willard, first 
president of the American Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Union, also first president of the World's W. 
C. T. U. By her purity and force of character and by 
her genius for organization, she with her associates, 
did more to secure municipal and state legislation to 
ennoble manhood and exalt womanhood than did any 
other person. 

Another distinguished woman is Miss Clara Barton, 
"the Florence Nightingale of America." During the 
Civil War her work for the sick and the wounded won 



184 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



for her the title, "Ange 1 of the Battlefield." Florence 
Nightingale achieved immortal fame by deeds of hero- 
ism in the Crimean War. But Clara Barton led the 
van of relief in our Civil War and also served with 
distinction in the Franco-Prussian War, in the Span- 
ish-American War, and in the Russo-Japanese War. 
Through her efforts the constitution of the Red Cross 
Society was altered to grant aid to the sufferers under 
calamities of peace. So she was a benediction in Ar- 
menian massacres, Russian famine, and earthquakes 
in Italy and San Francisco. 

Diplomas and decorations of honor have been 
awarded her by Germany, Armenia, Austria, Sweden, 
Servia, Switzerland, Turkey, Spain and Russia. 
Many other women of the W. C. T. U. merit honorable 
mention, but space forbids. 

For superior scholarship and great learning, two 
notable cases merit mention: (1) "Mrs. Bryant has 
taken the degree of Doctor of Science at the Univer- 
sity of London . . . This is by far the most severe 
test of philosophical scholarship, so far as range of 
subject is concerned, in England. The great difficul- 
ty of the examination is seen in the fact that, though 
it has been in existence a good number of years, it 
has been passed only once before. The fortunate can- 
didate on that occasion was a Hindu gentleman" (In- 
dian Mirror, 1884). 

(2) "Miss Amelia B. Edwards, Ph.D., L. H. D., 
LL.D., is with reason called 'the most learned lady in 
the world/ Her valued labors in the field of Egypt- 
ology, in addition to her varied labors in the realm of 
general literature, have had their recognition in Amer- 
ica as well as in Great Britain and Europe. American 
colleges have given her honorary degrees, and Ameri- 
can scholars have accorded her unstinted praise for the 
admirable work done by her in various departments 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 185 



of learning. A visit from Miss Edwards to America 
is, therefore, an event of special importance . . . 
Miss Edwards has held the attention of crowded au- 
diences in the great cities as well as university centres 
of England and Scotland, upon Egyptian, Grasco- 
Egyptian, and Biblical-Egyptian subjects; and she is 
said to relate the stirring story of Egyptian exploration 
with a vividness which makes those faraway subjects 
as interesting as a sensational romance" (India Wit- 
ness, 1889). 

The significance of these two cases, in large meas- 
ure, lies in the fact that these two women were secur- 
ing their education when the general prejudice against 
woman's higher education, in Europe and America, 
was intense. 

Once more. We have seen woman succeed as an 
inventor. A few examples of her success in the realm 
of discovery will be pleasing: 

(1) "Madame Curie, co-discoverer of radium, has 
been promoted to full professorship in the University 
of Paris. A woman who can discover new truth is cer- 
tainly qualified to teach it; and the young men in the 
university can afford to sit with respect at the feet of 
this remarkable woman of science." 

(2) "Mrs. Elizabeth Preston Brown Davis, who has 
calculated the ephemeris of the sun for the Nautical 
Almanac office for several years . . . has resigned 
a $1,200 position under Professor Simon Newcomb, 
which she won by a competitive examination in a large 
class of men, she being the only woman . . . Since 
Mrs. Davis has lived in Los Angeles she has done a 
good deal of work for Professor Barnard of the Lick 
Observatory. She calculates the orbits of all the new 
comets discovered by Professors Newcomb and Barn- 
ard . . . She invented the Washington-Greenwich 
table now used in the Nautical Almanac office. She 



186 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



has two children" (Washington Public Service, 1893). 

(3) Miss Maria Mitchell, noted astronomer and dis- 
tinguished professor of astronomy at Vassar College, 
in 1847 discovered a comet, for which she received a 
gold medal from the King of Denmark . . . The 
degree of LL.D. was conferred upon her by Hanover 
and also by Columbia University. 

(4) Best of all, from the standpoint of discovery, 
Mrs. Wilhelmina Fleming is easily the foremost 
astronomer of the world. 

"Of the seventeen new suns discovered during the 
past twenty-five years, Mrs. Wilhelmina Fleming, of 
Harvard, found ten. During the past year (1910), 
she discovered two — one on October 1, and one on 
October 13. 

"A third new sun was discovered by another woman 
at the Harvard Observatory, Miss E. J. Cannon. The 
date of her discovery was November 11, 1910. " 

"Up to within the last few days of the year, it looked 
as if American women held supreme honors for the 
year in exploring the skies; but on the evening of 
December 30, Dr. Espin of England found a new sun. 
He cabled the discovery to Harvard Observatory. The 
women there — there are fifteen of them — hurried to 
the camera plates, told him about it, etc. Miss Leavitt 
of Harvard found one new sun in her lifetime, and 
Miss Cannon discovered another. Thus, of seventeen 
new suns found in the last quarter century, these three 
American women have found thirteen. Male scientists 
have found four" (Toledo News-Bee, January 5. 
1911). 

Lax Enforcement of Law. 

Another great obstacle to realizing Christ in govern- 
ment is this laxness in enforcing wholesome laws. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 187 



There is lack of aptness to see this. This lack comes 
of a general deterioration in character, caused by the 
criminal neglect to enforce moral obligation in the 
state, and back of that, religious obligation in the 
churches. 

"During the last two years [1908-1910] there were 
forty-two trials of conspicuous offenders. One was a 
prominent political 'boss'; others were mayors, treas- 
urers and aldermen. 

"Of the forty-two indicted, twenty-seven were con- 
victed, but not one met his penalty. Seven left the 
country, and eight regained much of their former pres- 
tige" (Christian Herald, October 14, 1910). 

"Governor Patterson of Tennessee pardoned the 

noted criminal, the elder , placing himself above 

jury and supreme court, and turned loose a hardened, 
red-handed murderer, Over one hundred murderers 
are at large in Tennessee, with his approval. And 
scores of violators of the liquor laws have been set 
free" (Richmond Christian Advocate). 

These melancholy facts are given to justify the fol- 
lowing drastic statements : 

"Dr. Andrew White, ex-President of Cornell Uni- 
versity and former ambassador to Germany, in his ad- 
dress at Ithaca, N. Y., said that in the United States 
the average criminal serves but seven years of his life- 
sentence; and only one murderer in seventy-four is 
punished" . . . "The number of felonious homi- 
cides per million of population for various countries is : 
Canada, three; Germany, four to five; England and 
Wales, ten to eleven ; France, fourteen to fifteen ; Bel- 
gium, sixteen ; United States, 129. These are averages 
for eight years." . . . "The administration of crim- 
inal law has become simply a game between two or 
three lawyers; and the whole thing has become a 
farce." 



188 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



Secretary Taft [now President, U. S. A.] declared 
in his recent address at Yale University, that "the ad- 
ministration of the criminal laws of this country is a 
disgrace; and that the lax manner of their enforce- 
ment encourages the committing of crime." 

'There has been during the past twenty years [1885- 
1904] an enormous decrease of executions as compared 
with the total number of murders. Briefly stated, since 
1885, in this country there have been 131,951 murders 
and homicides, and only 2,286 executions and 2,920 
lynchings" (New Voice). The 634 lynchings in ex- 
cess of executions, indicates the general distrust con- 
cerning the enforcement of law. 

These ominous facts are given to show the magni- 
tude of the problem of enthroning Christ in govern- 
ment — our only hope (Acts 3:22,23). 

Wrong Opinions. 

Another and strong barrier against accepting Christ 
in government, is the erroneous opinions of prominent 
men. (1) Concerning government : The eminent Lord 
Wellesley declared that: "War is the means whereby 
nations are made. The vast domain of Britain has 
been built by the sword." 

Dr. J. M. Buckley, (editor of The Christian Advo- 
cate), curtly retorts: "That sentiment is suited to the 
Dark Ages." 

And the distinguished Field Marshal of Germany, 
Count von Moltke, declared to Professor Blunchli. in- 
structor of international law, December 11, 1880: 
"Eternal peace is a dream . . . War is a component 
part in the fixed order of the universe established 
by God Himself. It develops man's noblest virtues of 
courage and renunciation, faithfulness to duty and 
readiness for self-sacrifice. Were it not for war, the 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 189 



world would become bemired in materialism" (Mc- 
Clure's Magazine, May, 1910). 

"April 24, 1877, he declared to the Reichstag: 'Gen- 
tlemen, I share the hope and wish of the orator, for a 
lasting peace ; but I do not share his confidence. But, 
gentlemen, this lasting peace is prevented by mutual 
distrust, and in this distrust lies our greatest danger. 
Mutual distrust is what keeps the nations in arms 
against one another . . . All nations stand equally 
in need of peace' " (McClure's Magazine, November, 
1910). 

The distinguished count affirms a basal truth in say- 
ing: "Mutual distrust is what keeps the nations in 
arms against one another.'' But when he says : "War 
is a component part in the fixed order of the universe, 
established by God Himself," he says that "mutual dis- 
trust" at the foundation of war, is a "component part 
in the fixed order of the universe, established by God 
Himself !" What a theodicy ! What an estimate of 
God's character! 

The war sentiment of the famous field marshal is so 
contrary to the word of God, which declares: "The 
Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His 
works" (Psa. 145:17). 

How Count von Moltke's sentiment differs from 
that of the distinguished General W. T. Sherman, 
who said to some soldiers, commenting on war, "Boys, 
it's all hell!" 

And how it contrasts with the sentiment of that 
noble American patriot, General Nelson A. Miles: 
"War is a crime against humanity — abhorrent to in- 
telligence." 

Right views of God and Biblical views of sin and 
of its remedy, are antecedent and indispensable to 
Christ in government. 

Christian nations, generally — Germany in particular 



190 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



— have held the soldier-occupation in highest honor. 
But the trade of killing men by wholesale is rapidly 
falling in rank of honor. It no longer stands first. 

The order in China is fast gaining influence. Intel- 
ligence is the chief aristocracy. The order is (1) the 
scholar; (2) the farmer; (3) the mechanic; (4) the 
merchant; (5) the soldier. The first three are produc- 
tive; the fourth, distributive; the fifth and lowest is 
destructive — rightly the lowest. The first four are 
constructive, based on confidence and love; the last is 
destructive, based on distrust and hatred. 

In economic genius and moral insight, China is fav- 
orably circumstanced for early readiness to enthrone 
Christ in government. 

(2) Another obstacle — perhaps the greatest — pre- 
venting the realization of Christ in government accord- 
ing to the gospel, is the wrong opinions of the gospel 
generally held by the clergy and the people at large : 
(a) Fragmentary and superficial views of the gospel. 
This is strongly expressed in the Episcopal address at 
the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church [1896] : "It cannot be too deeply impressed 
upon our minds that in all ages the church has fallen 
far short of the Divine ideal, both in purity and power. 
God's thought and plans for His Church are as high 
above ours as the heavens are above the earth. . . . 
When we look at His ideal, promise, provision, and 
power, at the humiliation and exaltation of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, at the unwordable groanings of the Holy 
Spirit, it seems as if provision and performance were 
scarcely at all related." 

An illustration of this superficial view of the gospel 
is "a meeting of New York clergymen . . . There 
were about a dozen present, and among them were 
men of national and international reputation and in- 
fluence. One of the leaders expressed his perplexity 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 191 



and regret that he could not find in the teachings of 
Jesus any social laws ! And what is still more surpris- 
ing, the statement passed unchallenged; so completely 
had leaders of thought lost sight of the social aspects 
of Christianity" (Next Great Awakening, p. 118). 

(b) Erroneous views of the gospel are insurmount- 
able obstacles in the way of apprehending Christ in 
government. They preclude the personal experience 
that affords the aptitude for it. An instance of this 
is the following statement: 

"The doctrine of the Trinity is not the gospel; nor 
is it the foundation of the gospel . . . The question 
is one of metaphysics. It is not a question of religion" 
(Gospel for an Age of Doubt, p. 113). 

Surprising statement! Its fallacy is equalled only 
by the reputation of its author. How it pales in face 
of Christ's commission to baptize all nations "in the 
name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy 
Spirit" (Matt. 28:19). 

This baptismal covenant with the Holy Trinity 
surely is the content and "foundation of the gospel" 
(Rom. 6; 3, 4; Col. 2: 11, 12). Just as circumcision 
was basal in Judaism, baptism in the Holy Trinity is 
fundamental in the gospel. 

Most true are the words of that "prince of exe- 
getes," Dr. A. W. Meyer: "The Trinity is the point 
in which all Christian ideas, and interests unite; at 
once the beginning and the end of all insight into 
Christianity" (Lehre von der Trinitaet, Vol. I., p. 42). 

And the eminent Presbyterian theologian of Prince- 
ton, Dr. C. Hodge, declares the Trinity : "The doctrine 
that determines the religious experience of believers" 
(Systematic Theology, Vol. I., p. 442). 

And the world-renowned reformer, John Wesley, 
declares: "The knowledge of the Three-One God is 



192 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



interwoven with all true Christian faith" (Sermons, 
Vol. II., p. 24). 

These three great exegetes find that the Trinity is "the 
foundation of the gospel," is "a question of religion." 

Other erroneous views likewise obstruct the way of 
faith and progress toward the goal of Christ in gov- 
ernment; (1) such as substituting service for faith in 
order to salvation; whereas, "by grace are ye saved 
through faith . . . Not of works . . . For ye 
are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto 
good works" (Eph. 2:8-10); "To him that worketh 
not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, 
his faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4:5); 

(2) The fallacy of attempting acceptable service to 
God, on a time-limit, "to live for the next two zueeks 
as Jesus would," etc. ; whereas no Divine grace is pos- 
sible on a time-limit of human device (John 15:6, 7) ; 

(3) The baneful error of regarding the gospel as a 
scheme to take people to heaven in order to save them, 
instead of saving them here in order to establish the 
kingdom of God on earth (Matt. 4:17; Luke 9:2,6; 
16:16; 17:20,21). 

This baneful error being the direct opposite to God's 
plan, its tendency is to sin and spiritual death. Pro- 
fessor R. T. Ely, Ph.D., LL.D., rightly observes: "I 
believe it is a common impression that Christianity is 
concerned primarily with a future state of existence; 
and to this unfortunate error I trace the alliance be- 
tween the Church and the powers of this world" 
(Social Aspects of Christianity, p. 53). 

Having considered the disadvantages and the hind- 
rances to the inauguration of Christ in government, 
let us now view this subject in its 

Constructive Factors. 
1. Co-operative Profit-Sharing — This implies co- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 193 



partnership of interests. The employer and the em- 
ployee are associates. Capital and labor interlock ; the 
one complements the other. Neither outranks the other 
in honor. Mutual confidence and reciprocal effort 
characterize all parties concerned. Invested money 
and rendered service have just reward. Fidelity ex- 
cludes suspicion, and harmony slays anarchy. Char- 
acter is exalted, and business becomes a school of 
morals. 

Co-operative profit-sharing; in "giving employees a 
money interest in the business, brings out the best 
moral elements of the capitalist and of the workman. 
This system has been tried many times, and usually 
with success" (Wright, Practical Sociology, p. 281). 
The Herr Krupp great gun factory at Essen, Prussia, 
has practiced profit-sharing with satisfaction for many 
years. 

Professor R. T. Ely, LL.D., says : "A member of a 
firm having distributed more than $100,000 of profits 
among their employees, writes that he and his partner 
consider it the best investment they ever made" (Out- 
lines Econom., p. 199). "The United States Steel Cor- 
poration, January 1, 1911, gave $2,700,000 bonuses, 
against $2,000,000 January 1, 1910, for efficiency and 
punctuality." The International Harvester, Chicago. 
January 1, 1911, gave their men $500,000 as profit- 
sharing adopted years ago. The men may take the 
money or put it in as stock. Likewise the M. Gadin 
Works in Guise, France: "In this large manufacturing 
establishment, trustworthy working men now manage 
the entire business" (Ely, Outlines Econom., p. 200). 

This system of profit and capital sharing proving so 
great a success in Europe, is rapidly gaining favor with 
large business firms in the United States. Among its 
benefits are: (1) The workman receives larger com- 



194 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



pensation for his skill; (2) The capitalist gets better 
remuneration for his money; (3) The moral tone of 
the entire community is elevated; for "strikes" at 
best are demoralizing. 

2, Arbitration — This is, (1) industrial, (2) political, 
(3) international. Voluntary arbitration indicates hu- 
man progress. To settle party differences with a blud- 
geon denotes barbarism; to settle them by war — a 
skillful way of killing men by wholesale — denotes 
educated barbarism; to settle them by voluntary arbi- 
tration, denotes civilization. Only in high civilization 
do we meet real altruism — proper consideration of our 
fellow-man. 

Having already considered industrial arbitration, let 
us pass on to the study of political and international 
arbitration. 

Voluntary arbitration comes of the operation of 
moral forces. We are coming to see that moral force 
outranks all other forces. This is true psychologically : 
"The intellectual rises above the physical; the moral, 
above the intellectual, and claims that the understand- 
ing shall be obedient to it" (Dr. McCosh, Christianity 
and Positivism, p. 54). And it must become so his- 
torically. 

This welcome consummation was forecast fifty 
years ago by the great American statesman, Charles 
Sumner: "When the national example will be more 
puissant than army or navy for the conquest of the 
world." 

It was this and direct moral force wielded by the 
President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, 
at the Portsmouth peace council of the foremost dip- 
lomats of Russia and of Japan, that brought to an 
end the war between those two great nations. 

To all under the control of physical, brute force, in- 
ternational arbitration looks like a confession of na- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 195 



tional incompetency. They do not see that even between 
parties of strong high moral character mistakes in 
judgment are possible, and may cause irreconcilable 
differences, as in the case of Barnabas and Saul (Acts 
13: 2-4), concerning the servant Mark (Acts 11: 24; 
15:36-39) ; and, likewise, in the case of John Wesley 
and Jonathan Edwards concerning Calvinism. 

The United States and Great Britain are in evi- 
dence : "Within the last two years nine disputes of long 
standing between Canada and the United States have 
been amicably settled, including the boundary waters 
and the Newfoundland fisheries, two disputes which 
almost precipitated war." 

Up to the present time there have been nearly three 
hundred cases of amicable settlement, by arbitration, 
of questions between different nations. But in all 
these cases, the point in dispute was one of property 
or industry. The question of honor was excepted, al- 
though remotely it seemed involved. 

But a new era has dawned. The great steel mag- 
nate, Andrew Carnegie, has given $10,000,000 as a 
foundation to secure universal peace among nations. 
Viewing the questions from the financial standpoint, 
he says : "The mad preparations for war all over the 
world are increasing the cost of living. The cost of 
armies and navies for 1910 was tremendous. To Great 
Britain the cost was $315,000,000; to Germany, $287,- 
000,000 ; to Russia, $281,000,000 ; to the United States, 
$262,000,000; to France, $227,000,000; to Japan, $95,- 
000,000; to Italy, $84,000,000. And these figures do 
not include the enormous cost of pensions. In the 
United States the total expense overtops $400,- 
000,000." 

The well-known French economist, Edmund Thery, 
says : "The armed peace of Europe, of the last twenty- 
five years, has cost $29,000,000,000 . . . Much of 



196 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



it has been paid to keep 4,000,000 men out of all kinds 
of productive industry." 

On the far-reaching influence of our enormous 
waste of money, in view of war, Mr. Carnegie says : 
"The commercial exchanges annually exceed $25,000,- 
000,000 in value, and are constantly increasing. The 
nations are partners in this enormous traffic. Why 
should any two be permitted to go to war and thus 
disturb this world-commerce in which we all are in- 
terested? Every nation has a stake in the world's 
peace, and a partner has a right to insist that should 
disputes arise these must be amicably settled." 

The chief hindrance to an international compact se- 
curing universal peace, has been the unwillingness to 
submit to a court of arbitration questions of national 
honor as well as questions of property and finance. 

On this point President W. H. Taft, in his address 
before the Peace and Arbitration Society in New York 
last March [1910], said: "I have noticed exception, 
in our arbitration treaties, as to reference of questions 
of national honor to courts of arbitration. 

"Personally, I do not see any more reason why mat- 
ters of national honor should not be referred to a court 
of arbitration than matters of property or of national 
proprietorship ... I do not see why a question of 
honor may not be submitted to a tribunal composed of 
men of honor who* understand questions of national 
honor, as well as any other question of difference aris- 
ing between nations." 

In this, President Taft is the first among the rulers 
of the great world-powers to take this position. But 
smaller nations have the honor of first establishing ab- 
solute peace. The South American republics of Chili 
and Argentina first established unqualified interna- 
tional peace, and placed on their boundary line on the 
top of the Andes a colossal statue of the Galilean 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 197 



Prince of Peace. Sweden and Norway have followed 
their example; so have Belgium and Holland. 

And if the United States Congress will enact a law, 
as recommended in President Taft's message, provid- 
ing for the appointment of a commission of five mem- 
bers "to be appointed by the President of the United 
States to consider the expediency of utilizing existing 
international agencies for the purpose of limiting the 
armaments of the nations of the world by international 
agreement, and of constituting the combined navies of 
the world an international force for the preservation 
of universal peace," — if the United States Congress 
enacts such a law, other world-powers will do the 
same, and Mr. Carnegie's forecast will surely come to 
pass: "Young men of this generation are to see the 
civilized world under the reign of peace." 

Mutual distrust lies at the foundation of the un- 
willingness to freely submit all questions of dispute to 
a competent court of international arbitration. And 
at the foundation of this mutual distrust among the 
nations is the lack of trustworthy character. 

And in the absence of this trustworthy character, 
nations have reserved the privilege to be their own 
judges of what is right. For self-protection they have 
done this, and "self-protection is the first law of life." 
Then, under the circumstances, they have been doing 
what is right. But in doing this, they have been adopt- 
ing a principle at variance with civic justice, that of 
sitting in judgment on their own cause. The words 
of Mr. Carnegie are true and forcible: "The obstacle 
in our path hitherto has been the desire of nations 
to sit in judgment in their own cause, a parctice which 
would condemn any judge to infamy. No nation 
should do so. The man who sits in judgment in his 
own case, violates the first principle of natural justice 
and is dishonored." 



198 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



Politicians are bewildered; and statesmen are in a 
dilemma. Under present circumstances of common 
international distrust, each nation will be its own 
judge as to what is right respecting other nations, a 
course at variance with the first principles of justice 
and morality in community. A principle that is 
morally wrong between individuals, is morally wrong 
also between communities and nations. 

Forcible on this point is the statement in the address 
of Ex-President Roosevelt, delivered at the Sorbonne, 
Paris, in April 1910 : "I do not for one moment admit 
that political morality is different from private mo- 
rality ; that a promise made on the stump differs from 
a promise made in private life. I do not for one mo- 
ment admit that a man should act deceitfully as a 
public servant in his dealings with other nations, any 
more than that he should act deceitfully in his deal- 
ings as a private citizen with other private citizens ; 
/ do not for one moment admit that a nation should 
treat other nations in a different spirit from that in 
which an honorable man would treat other men." 

But all right-thinking men, statesmen or theologians, 
are agreed on one point; namely, that the only hope 
of nations is Christ. 

Accordingly the United States Congress, Septem- 
ber 11, 1777, voted to import 20,000 Bibles, and recom- 
mended the "Legislature to take the most urgent 
measures for the encouragement of true religion." 

Dr. Gregory rightly declares : "Duty toward God re- 
quires of the State that it should actually conform 
its conduct to the will of God as the immutable law of 
right" (Ethics, p. 306). Dr. C. Hodge enforces the 
same sentiment: "A civil government cannot ignore 
religion any more than physiology. It was not con- 
stituted to teach either the one or the other; but it 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 199 



must, by a like necessity, conform its action to the 
laws of both." (Ethics, p. 342). 

The English biologist, Prof. Huxley, member of the 
London School Board in 1882, voted to retain the 
Bible in the schools of London, saying: "I know not 
how we can maintain the religious sentiment which is 
the basis of all right action, in the present chaotic state 
of opinion on these matters, without the use of the 
Bible." 

Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, in his address at 
Berlin, Germany, in May 1910, declared: "We can 
well do without the hard intolerance and intellectual 
barrenness of what was worst in the theological sys- 
tems of the past, but there has never been greater need 
of a high and fine religious spirit than at the present 
time." 

The French statesman, Monsieur de Tocqueville, 
has well said : "It is religion that has given rise to 
the Anglo-American communities." 

An elder and foremost statesman of Japan, Count 
Okuma, in his address at Commencement of Aoyama 
College, 1910, said: "I believe that Christianity is the 
most advanced form of civilization. There is a pos- 
sibility, I think, that the centre of civilization will come 
round to the Far East when this advanced religion 
[Christianity] has rightly been interwoven into the 
thought of the nation, and the nation has progressed 
with the times. 

"I believe that any nation that makes antiquated 
faith its state religion will soon cease to exist. There- 
fore I hope that you will endeavor to live up to the 
teachings of Christ." 

Another great statesman of Japan, ex-member of 
the Imperial Cabinet, Baron Maejima, declared re- 
cently : "I firmly believe that we must have religion at 
the basis of our national and personal welfare. No 



200 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



matter how large an army or navy we may have, unless 
we have righteousness at the foundation of our na- 
tional existence, we shall fall short of the highest 
success. 

"I do not hesitate to say that we must rely upon re- 
ligion for our highest welfare. And when I look about 
me to see what religion we can best rely on, I am con- 
vinced that the religion of Christ is the most full of 
strength and promise for the nation." 

On this point of Christ the final and only satisfying 
hope of nations, Count Okuma, of Japan, quoted be- 
fore, says : "The efforts which Christians are making 
to supply to the country a high standard of conduct, 
are welcomed by all right-thinking people. 

"As you read your Bible you may think it anti- 
quated — out of date. The words it contains may so 
appear; but the noble life which it holds up to ad- 
miration is something that will never be out of date, 
however much the world may progress. 

"Live and preach this life ; and you will supply the 
nation just what it needs at the present juncture." 

As the sun rises to rule the day, Christ, the "Sun of 
Righteousness," comes to rule the world. And all na- 
tions are now seeing this — some the daylight, others 
the dawn. This is the power that works for righteous- 
ness. And nations have survived or sunk to ruin as 
they have obeyed or disdained that Power. While 
"evil men and seducers [individual or national] shall 
wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" 
(2 Tim. 3:13), the world grows better (Isa. 11.9,10; 
Hab. 2:14). 

In testimony, Professor Lieber declares : "The mor- 
als of the Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Cen- 
turies were of a most licentious character. Whoever 
is least acquainted with the morals of those ages . . . 
will consider the advance of morality in our race dur- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 201 



ing the last two centuries — despite all existing irregu- 
larities — as one of the most signal traits in modern 
history" (Political Ethics, Vol. II., p. 134). 

In the progress of mankind from savage to civilized 
conditions, at every stage of new development and sur- 
viving all other obstacles, has been, and is, the crown- 
ing obstacle in man himself — his sinful nature, or "sin 
in the flesh" (Rom. 8:3). God declares: "The mind 
of the flesh [old man. — Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22] is en- 
mity against God; for it is not subject to the law of 
God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7). 

While all constructive forces, noted above, have im- 
proved man's condition, and effected a gradual ap- 
proach toward individual and national perfection, that 
God-appointed goal has not been reached; nor can it 
be, in man's sinful condition. This brings us to con- 
sider our final point in this problem. 

Christ in Government Accomplished. 

To have Christ in government an accomplished fact 
in history, God has been preparing the nations. Every 
new step in advance seems taken with a view to some- 
thing more to come. In fact, there is in historic prov- 
idence no isolated event. Progress among the nations 
in the near past, and now, has no parallel. 

The absolute sovereigns of Japan, China, Turkey, 
and Russia granting to their subjects constitutional 
government; and the civic reform and labor-exalting 
among other nations, mark the beginning of a 
new era. 

On this long disturbing question of "capital and 
labor," the greatest of modern statesmen, Abraham 
Lincoln, held sound views endorsed recently by Ex- 
President Roosevelt: "I hold that while man exists, 
it is his duty to improve, not only his own condition, 
but to assist in ameliorating mankind . . . labor is 
prior to, and independent of, capital; capital is only 



202 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



the fruit of labor. Labor is the superior of capital, 
and deserves the higher consideration. Capital has 
its rights which are as worthy of protection as any 
other rights . . . Nor should this lead to war 
upon the owners of property. Property is desirable; 
is a positive good in the world. Let not him who is 
homeless, pull down the house of another; but let 
him work diligently and build one for himself, thus 
by example showing that his own shall be safe from 
violence when built." 

The industrial, political and commercial progress 
of the nations is wonderful ; and, among them all, the 
United States is foremost in political influence and 
wealth. 

(1) The leadership of the United States in ending 
war and securing international peace, has been highly 
acknowledged: The Grashdamin [Russian], Septem- 
ber 3, 1905, says: "With the advent of peace as the 
result of the Portsmouth Conference, European diplo- 
macy steps back to give place to the practical, sound, 
common-sense diplomacy exemplified by President 
Roosevelt." 

And Emperor William II., of Germany, declared : 
"President Roosevelt alone deserves credit for bring- 
ing about peace. He was the only man in the world 
who could have done it. He did his part splendidly." 

And the Mikado of Japan, on September 3, 1905, 
issued the following acknowledgment: "The Presi- 
dent — I have received with gratification your message 
conveyed through our plenipotentiaries, and thank you 
warmly for it. 

"To your disinterested and unremitting efforts in 
the interests of peace and humanity I attach the high 
value which is their due, and assure you of my grate- 
ful appreciation of the distinguished part you have 
taken in the establishment of peace based upon prin- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 203 



ciples essential to the permanent welfare and tran- 
quility of the Far East — Mutsuhito." 

The high personal character and the great diplo- 
matic ability of the then Secretary of State, Mr. John 
Hay, is a matter of common knowledge. He did much 
to bring peace. 

The advanced international peace sentiment of the 
government at Washington had notably causal ante- 
cedents. Dr. Channing styled "a battlefield a vast ex- 
hibition of crime ; a more fearful hell in any region of 
the universe cannot well be conceived." 
ETHICS— 49 

Senator Charles Sumner called war "international 
lynch law with mark infinitely evil and accursed." 
And he said: "The greatest value of the Springfield 
Arsenal was that it inspired Longfellow's poem 
against war." 

And Theodore Parker wrote: "Posterity will damn 
into deep infamy that government which allows a war 
to take place in the midst of the Nineteenth Century." 

British philanthropists have expressed like sen- 
timent. 

(2) The wealth of the United States far exceeds 
that of other nations. A few data will show this. And 
this also gives the United States international respon- 
sibility far above other nations. 

A few data: The bank deposits have been stated 
as follows, "The United States, $418.89 per capita; 
Canada, $289,14; Hungary, $251.91; Japan, $5.48. 

"In 1900, sixty-one banks had on deposit $824,823,114. 
and up to 1910 gained 112 per cent. ; capital stock had 
increased 164 per cent.; surplus undivided profits had 
increased 160 per cent" (Chicago Banker, October 22, 
1910). 

The Wall Street Journal [1910] gave 793 trusts 



204 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



with aggregate capital, $1,400,000,000 reporting daily 
increase of $10,000,000. 

In 1910 the farms were valued at $25,000,000,000, 
producing annually $8,000,000,000. The cereals alone 
in 1909 equaled $3,000,000,000, that is more than 
$29,000,000 for each working day of the year (Sec- 
retary Wilson). 

For the year ending June 30, 1910, the operating 
expenses of all the railroads in the United States ag- 
gregated $1,847,189,773.03 ; operating income, $2,787,- 
266,136.64, which equals three times the income of the 
United States from all sources. The total earnings of 
all railroads in the country, above operating expenses, 
were $940,076,361.61, exceeding the earnings of 1909 
by nearly $112,000,000 (Christian Work and Evange- 
list, January 7, 1911). 

On these railroads are 100,000 engines drawing two 
billion tons of freight — equals the tonnage of all the 
rest of the world's railroads and ships combined. This 
monstrous task is done by 5,500,000 men, paid annu- 
ally $2,300,000,000. This vast business is done with 
$150,000,000,000 bank clearings. 

"Twenty years ago we were second to Great Britain 
in the output of iron and steel. To-day [1910] our 
output of iron and steel equals that of all the rest of 
the world." 

We have now [1910] in savings banks, $3,500,000,- 
000 ; in national banks, $4,500,000,000 ; in state banks, 
$5,000,000,000. Grand total, $13,000,000,000. 

Thfc National Bank capital is held by 375,000 persons, 
of whom 125,000 are women. And women own about 
half of the immense Pennsylvania Railroad System. 

'On January 28, 1911, the government reported the 
annual exports $1,864,491,944, and the imports, 
$1,562,924,251. Total exports and imports, $3,427,- 
415,895. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 205 



The United States wealth in 1910 was $120,000,- 
000,000. 

For the year ending September 30, 1909, the New 
York clearing house reported $102,500,000,000; for 
the first week in January, 1911, $2,085,627,245.57. 

Some people apprehend danger from this tremen- 
dous accumulation of wealth on part of corporations 
and the government. But the danger lies in the use 
made of the money, by government, corporation, or 
individual. 

Instance a right use: J. P. Morgan and John D. 
Rockefeller averted the impending financial crash in 
1907 by pledging $110,000,000. And Andrew Car- 
negie has given $10,000,000 as a foundation to bring 
about universal peace among all nations. His other 
distributions to education, charity, etc., are said to ag- 
gregate about $180,000,000. And the benefactions of 
John D. Rockefeller amount to about $175,000,000; 
Mrs. Leland Stanford, $30,400,000. Many others— 
J. S. Rogers, $5,000,000 ; Christopher Magee, $4,000,- 
000; Lewis Elkins, $2,000,000; Josephine L. New- 
comb, $1,500,000. Others, over a million, J. P. Mor- 
gan, P. D. Armour, Mrs. E. Blaine, Mrs. Russell Sage, 
Miss Helen Gould, et al. And thousands of others 
giving hundreds of thousands and less, show rapid in- 
crease in the right use of money. 

The Content of Christ in Government. 

(1) What is the content of this expression, Christ 
in government? What does it mean? What are the 
essential elements? What constitutes Christ in gov- 
ernment? 

There is great need of clear thought on this point. 
Does the expression mean present government as now 
influenced by current Christianity? Does it mean leg- 
islation shaped by the moral teachings of Christ ? Or, 
stiU more fully, is it the putting into practice in politi- 



206 CHRIST IN ETHICS 

cal life the moral principles which Christ taught? This 
is about what is generally understood by the expres- 
sion, Christ in government, or politics. 

But in this way the term Christ is taken to mean 
principles, moral sentiment. But Christ is not prin- 
ciple nor sentiment. He is a Divine Person. The word 
has its literal meaning. 

(2) In order to get a clear view of this matter, one 
of two ways may be employed, (1) to study the Old 
Testament prophecies concerning Christ and His king- 
dom; (2) to examine the New Testament Scriptures 
clearly portraying Christ and narrating what He said 
and did. 

In employing the first method, one is liable to mis- 
take through a wrong interpretation of the prophecies 
foretelling Christ and His kingdom. In this way the 
Jews erred and, in consequence, rejected Christ as be- 
ing the foretold Messiah. 

Christ did not establish a visible, political kingdom, 
and sit upon the literal, material throne of David, as 
they interpreted these prophecies; and, consequently, 
they rejected Him as an impostor. 

The second, and safer method, is employed here. 

(3) Christ and His apostles use the expression, 
"kingdom of God," "kingdom of heaven," without any 
foreword of introduction or explanation. It was a 
familiar idea in the Jewish mind. Ever since the time 
of the great statesman and prophet, Daniel, they had 
been looking forward for the God of heaven to es- 
tablish a powerful kingdom in Jerusalem with His 
Son, the Messiah, on the throne of David. 

"And in the days of these kings shall the God of 
heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be de- 
stroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other 
people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all 
these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever" (Dan. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 207 



2:44). This destruction of these world-kingdoms was 
indicated by the "Stone cut out of the mountain with- 
out hands [which smote the image upon his feet — 
ver. 34] , and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, 
the clay, the silver, and the gold" (Dan. 2:45). 

(4) The universal sovereignty and Divine inaugu- 
ration of the coming Messiah- King appeared clear: 
"The Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, 
and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him 
near before him. And there was given him dominion, 
and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations and 
languages should serve Him ; His dominion is an ever- 
lasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His 
kingdom that which shall not be destroyed" (Dan. 
7:13,14). 

In fact, this kingdom was quite clearly indicated 200 
years prior to this, by Isaiah : "Behold a Virgin shall 
conceive, and bear a Son, and thou shalt call His 
name Immanuel" (Isa. 7:14). "For unto us a child 
is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government 
shall be upon His shoulder: And His name shall be 
called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the 
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the in- 
crease of His government and peace there shall be 
no end, upon the throne of David, and to establish it 
with judgment and with justice from henceforth even 
forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform 
this" (Isa. 9:6,7). 

(5) Christ appropriates to Himself the prophecy 
in Dan. 7 :13 : "The Son of Man came with the clouds 
of heaven," when He foretells the destruction of Jeru- 
salem and the Jewish state: "Then shalt they see the 
Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great 
glory" (Luke 21:20-27). 

"When the Son of Man came to the Ancient of days 
. . . there was given him dominion, and glory, 



208 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, 
should serve Him" (Dan. 7:13,14). So, Christ de- 
clares : "All power is given unto me in heaven and 
in earth; going, therefore, disciple ye all the nations, 
baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19). The 
emphasis is on "disciple ye." 

(6) Christ claims beyond question to be the Mes- 
siah-King foretold by Isaiah and Daniel (Luke 4: 
17-21; (Luke 21:20-17;) (a) In his royal entrance into 
Jerusalem, "Hosanna to the Son of David," etc. (Matt. 
21:5-9) ; "Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel that 
cometh in the name of the Lord (John 12:13); (b) 
when Pilate put Him the question, "Art thou a king, 
then?" Jesus answered ... "I am a King; and 
to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into 
the world ; that I should bear testimony to the truth" 
(John 18:37); (c) in making it His death-testimony 
by accepting the superscription on His cross, "Jesus of 
Nazareth, the King of the Jews" (John 19:19). 

(7) The Apostles characterize Him as follows: "In 
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). 

"God hath highly exalted Him, and given Himaname 
which is above every name ; that at the name of Jesus 
every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things 
in earth, and things under the earth. And that every 
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the 
glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:9-11). 

"Who is the image of the invisible God the first- 
born of every creature : For by Him were all things 
created, that are in the heavens [Gr.], and that are 
in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, 
or dominions, or principalities, or powers : all things 
were created by Him and for Him : And He is before 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 209 



all things, and by Him all things consist" (Col. 
1:15-17). 

"God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His 
Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by 
whom also He made the worlds ; who, being the bright- 
ness of His glory and the express image of His per- 
son, and upholding all things by the word of His 
power, when He had purged our sins, sat down on the 
right hand of the Majesty, on high . . . Thy throne/ 
O God, is forever and ever; a sceptre of righteous- 
ness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved 
righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore, God, even 
thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness 
above thy fellows," etc. (Heb. 1:2, 3, 8, 9). 

This foretold aggressive King is 'The Mighty God" 
creating and carrying forward (Heb. 1:3) all things 
composing the universe, and is seated on the throne of 
David, ruling the world in righteousness. The Ger- 
man author, Jean Paul Richter, well expresses it: 
"Christ, who being the mightiest among the holy, and 
the holiest among the mighty, lifted with His pierced 
hands empires off their hinges, turned the stream of 
centuries out of its channel, and still governs the ages." 

(8) When Christ received His dominion from His 
Father, "the Ancient of days," it was enacted in the 
spiritual, unseen domain ; and the transaction was 
known to mankind through Daniel's vision alone 
(Dan. 7:13, 14). 

Likewise the establishing of His dominion, or king- 
dom, in mankind is enacted in the spiritual, unseen 
domain. 

But the Jews were looking for it in the open, in a 
spectacular manner. Jesus rebuked their materialism 
as He said: "The kingdom of God cometh not with 
observation [watching closely, observing constantly — 
Gr.] ; neither shall they say, Lo here, or lo there! for 



210 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17 :20, 21) — 
Within believers; entos means within only, never 
among; eleven other Greek words mean among, but 
not within. 

The coming of Christ in His kingdom cannot be 
seen by "watching closely," He says ; for visible things 
do not constitute it. He declares: "My kingdom is 
not of this world . . . not from hence" (John 
18:36), not constituted of this world nor produced by 
it. On the contrary, He said: "I am from above" 
(John 8:23); and He commanded His disciples be- 
fore His resurrection and Pentecost to pray. "Thy 
kingdom come; thy will be done in earth as it is in 
heaven" (Matt. 6:10). Christ and His kingdom cannot 
be communicated of man, "He cannot know them" 
(1 Cor. 2:12-14). Only by revelation can we know 
them: "It pleased God ... to reveal His Son in 
me, that I might preach Him among the heathen" 
(Gal. 1:15,16). 

"The kingdom of God is not in word [doctrine] but 
in power" — dynamite (1 Cor. 4:20). It is in "power" 
— not exousia — authority, organizing ability, but du- 
namis — dynamite, force, "the force of God" (Rom. 
1 :16. "The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, 
and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17), not right- 
eousness, peace, and joy of religion in the abstract 
and impersonal, but righteousness in the Holy Spirit, 
peace in the Holy Spirit, and joy in the Holy Spirit. 
They are not imparted, but known only in union with 
the Divine Personality. One may have religious peace 
and religious joy and right opinions, and yet not have 
the kingdom of God within. We do not enter the 
kingdom of God by preparatory correction and instruc- 
tion in opinions, but by preparatory spiritual birth and 
by faith: "Except a man be born again [from above] 
he cannot see the kingdom of God." "Except a man be 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



211; 



born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into 
the kingdom of God" (John 3:3, 5). 

Nicodemus did not have this consciousness of spirit- 
ual birth from "above," and Christ rebuked him: "Art 
thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" 
(John 3:10). According to Christ's teaching here, be- 
coming a child of God by spiritual birth, is not en- 
trance into the kingdom of God, but is preparatory 
thereto. Accordingly John the Baptist was called "to 
go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, 
to give the knowledge of salvation unto his people by 
the remission of their sins" (Luke 1:77). 

The initial child of God is one thing; but, to be in 
the kingdom of God, is another. The first was John 
the Baptist; so were his true disciples and all the Old 
Testament saints (Heb. 11:4-39) ; but they were not 
in the kingdom of God, for as yet it was not estab- 
lished ; hence Christ says : "The Law and the Prophets 
were until John : since that time the kingdom of God 
is preached" (Luke 16:16). 

That the kingdom of God was then being established 
is beyond doubt; for (a) Christ "sent them to preach 
the kingdom of God," and "they went through the 
towns, preaching the gospel; therefore the kingdom 
of God in the gospel"; (b) for Christ plainly affirmed 
it : "Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here 
which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son 
of Man coming in His kingdom" (Matt. 16:28); so 
Luke 9 :27 ; "Verily I say unto you, that there be some 
of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, 
till they have seen the kingdom of God come with 
power" (Mark 9:1). That this occurred in Pentecost, 
is evident. 

But these Scriptures imply the personal manifesta- 
tion of Christ? Doubtless. Now, since current Chris- 
tianity has no such manifestations of Christ, it is in- 



212 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



ferred that the personal manifestations of Christ have 
ceased by Divine order. The fallacy in this reasoning 
is the baseless assumption that current Christianity is 
that of the New Testament. 

Current Christianity is so far below the standard of 
the New Testament, that it shapes all religious opin- 
ions, and prejudices the mind against the Christianity 
revealed in the New Testament. By darkening the 
mind and searing the conscience, current Christianity, 
in large measure, bars out of the world the Christian- 
ity of the New Testament. 

Manifesting the Divine Personality in the Christian 
consciousness is the fundamental (Matt. 28:19) and 
chief excellence of the gospel (2 Cor. 3.14-18). It 
is an essential, integral part of the gospel, as these 
texts plainly show : "If ye love me, keep my command- 
ments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give 
you another Comforter, that He may abide with you 
for ever; even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world 
cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither know- 
eth Him ; but ye know Him, for He dwelleth with you, 
and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless : 
I will come to you . . . He that hath my command- 
ments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and 
he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I 
will love him, and manifest myself unto him . . . 
And my Father will love him, and we will come unto 
him and make our abode with him" (John 14:15-23) 
. . . "It is expedient for you that I go away : for 
if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto 
you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you. And 
when he is come [unto you], He will reprove [convict] 
the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judg- 
ment. Of sin because they believe not on me; of 
righteousness, because I go to my Father ... of 
judgment, because the prince of this world is judged 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 213 



. . When the Spirit of truth is come [unto you] 
He will guide you into all the truth ; for He shall not 
speak of Himself [from His own authority] ; but 
whatsoever He shall hear that shall He speak ; and He 
will show you things to come. He shall glorify me; 
for He shall receive of mine and show it unto you. 
All things that the Father hath, are mine: therefore 
said I, that 'He shall take of mine and shall show it 
unto you'" (John 16:7-15). 

"They are not of the world, even as I am not of 
the world ... I pray for them also which shall 
believe on me through thy word; that they all may be 
one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that 
they also may be one in us ; that the world may be- 
lieve that thou hast sent me" (John 17:16-21). Here 
is the most intimate relation of personality. 

And God's ideal kingdom is constituted of His ideal 
King and of His ideal subjects; hence Paul's prayer, 
for the Church at Ephesus, to the Father: 

''That He would grant you, according to the riches 
of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His 
Spirit [accepted years before, Acts 19:2-6] in the 
inner man: (a) That Christ may dwell in your hearts 
by faith ; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 
may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the 
breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to 
know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that 
ye might be filled unto all the fulness of God" (Eph. 
3:16-19). 

In like manner Paul prayed for the Church at Col- 
osse: "That ye might be filled with the knowledge of 
His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 
that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleas- 
ing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing 

(a) "That Christ may take up His abode" (A. W. 
Mayer); "lasting abode" (Alford) in your hearts. 



214 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



in the full knowledge [Gr.] of God; strengthened with 
all might, according to His glorious power, unto all 
patience and long-suffering with joy fulness" (Col. 
1:9-11). 

In both of these prayers, the grace implored is ac- 
cording to God's glorious power; and its glory is its 
Almightiness. 

John Fletcher, on John 14 :23, says that "This spirit- 
ual abode of Christ in the souls of His people is the 
most glorious mystery of the Gospel" (Works, Vol. 
III., p. 196). It is "the mystery which hath been hid 
from ages and from generations, but now is made 
manifest to His saints. To whom God would make 
known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery 
among the Gentiles which is Christ in you, the hope of 
glory" (Col. 1:26,27). 

It is this personal indwelling of Christ and God, and 
not the grace of Perfect Love, that differentiates the 
Gospel, the kingdom of God, from the dispensation of 
Moses. Christ declares Perfect Love to be the char- 
acterizing grace of the "Law and Prophets" (Matt. 
22 :36, 40). And Moses so declared (Lev. 19 :2. 18, 34). 

The erroneous notion that the Mosaic dispensation 
is one of mere symbols, religious ceremonies ; and that 
actual salvation from sin was brought in by the Gos- 
pel, mistakes the Old Testament and makes impossible 
the New Testament Kingdom of God, with Christ 
manifest in the heart (Eph. 3:17). 

The eminent exegete and associate of John Wesley. 
John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, says: "This mani- 
festation is, sooner or later, in a higher or lower de- 
gree, vouchsafed to every sincere seeker, through the 
medium of one or more of the spiritual senses opened 
in his soul, in a gradual or instantaneous manner, as 
it pleases God" (Fletcher's Works, Vol. IV., p. 282). 
Mr. Fletcher cites God speaking with Moses (Deut. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 215 



5:24): "face to face as a man speaketh unto his 
friend" (Exod. 33 :11) ; appearing to Joshua near Jeri- 
cho (Josh. 5:13) ; to Samuel (1 Sam. 3:7; 9:17) ; to 
Solomon (1 Kings 9:2) ; Micaiah (1 Kings 22:19) ; to 
Elisha (2 Kings 6:17) ; to Isaiah (Isa. 6:1) ; to Eze- 
kiel times so numerous, I refer you to the book itself, 
and then observes : "If, because we have the letter of 
Scripture, we must be deprived of all immediate mani- 
festations of Christ and His Spirit, we are great losers 
by that blessed book, and we might reasonably say, 
"Lord, bring us back to the dispensation of Moses . . 
. O Lord, if because we have this blessed picture of 
thee, we must have no discovery of the glorious orig- 
inal, have compassion on us, take back thy precious 
book, and impart thy more precious self to us as thou 
didst to thy ancient people." And then he declares : 
"That particular manifestations of Christ, far from 
ceasing with the Jewish, have increased in brightness 
and spirituality under the Christian dispensation" 
(Works, Vol. IV., pp. 300, 301). 

Mr. Fletcher then cites Pentecost: "They received 
the gift of the Holy Ghost, whose office it is to mani- 
fest the Son . . . He then came revealed in the 
power of the Spirit" (Fletcher's Works, Vol. IV., p. 
305). So the greatest of German exegetes, August 
Wilhelm Meyer, declares of Pentecost: "In the mis- 
sion of the Spirit the self-communication of the ex- 
alted Christ takes place" (On John 14:16, 17). Like- 
wise the eminent F. Godet, of deep spiritual insight: 
"He associated them in His state as raised from the 
dead, just as later through Pentecost He will make 
them participate in His state as glorified" (Com. on 
John 20:22). 

Mr. Fletcher continues to show frequent personal 
manifestations of Christ in the Christian dispensation, 
and cites Stephen before the Jewish Council in Jeru- 



216 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



salem: "And when they heard these things [Stephen's 
defense], they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed 
on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy 
Ghost, looked steadfastly up into heaven, and saw the 
glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand 
of God, and said 'Behold, I see the heavens opened, 
and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of 
God'" (Acts 7:54-56). 

He then gives Paul's experience at Corinth, where 
Christ said to Him: "Be not afraid . . . for I am 
with thee," etc., and his account of being in the third 
heaven. Paul had so many manifestations of the spir- 
itual and eternal that he calls them "visions and rev- 
elations of the Lord" (2 Cor. 12:1), so many were 
there, that he did not give the number, but said "the 
abundance of revelations" (verse 7). 

And the manifestations of Christ to the Apostle 
John were so many that an entire book is given to 
them (Rev. 1:1). These manifestations indicate spir- 
itual transformation of the subject. In fact, this is 
Paul's idea of Christianity — constant transformation 
of character as we behold the glorified Christ and so 
"changed from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18). John 
conditions his visions on being "in the Spirit on the 
Lord's day" (Rev. 1 :10). So Stephen was much spir- 
itualized prior to his wonderful vision: "All that sat 
in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face 
as it had been the face of an angel" (Acts 16 :15). 

The transforming power of these manifestations of 
Christ in the Christian believer is wonderful, affecting 
his entire physical being. The basis of this is the scien- 
tific fact stated by Dr. Franz Delitzsch, that "The soul 
is the image of the spirit and makes the body the 
image of itself" (Biblic. Psychol., p. 272). In proof 
is the face of Moses (Exod. 34:29,30); of Stephen 
(Acts 6:15); of Christ (Luke 9:28-29). The trans- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 217 



figuration (Mark 9:2,3) proves the extreme suscep- 
tibility of opaque matter to become glorified. Well! 
Nature continually abounds in evidences ; the rose in 
composition and color is one illustration of many. If 
vegetable life can so glorify crass matter, what may 
not God's life do in man? 

The human body is no punishment and trammel to 
the soul and spirit, as paganism teaches (Brahmans 
and Plato), but a fit instrument to express the soul and 
spirit. It is an incontestible fact in science expressed 
by Dr. Franz Delitzsch that: "Matter with its powers 
is incapable of carrying its action over into the region 
of the spirit . . . Briefly, matter has no power over 
the spirit, except so far as the spirit itself makes it to 
have; for it is the power over matter" (Biblical Psy- 
chology, p. 261). Likewise Dr. A. W. Meyer says: 
"There is nothing in the Biblical use of the term to jus- 
tify the opinion that the flesh [sarks, literal body] is 
itself evil or necessarily productive of sin. So, Dr. 
Adolf Wuttke : "The natural body, the sensuous cor- 
poreality, is despite its seemingly trammeling power 
over the freedom of the spirit, per se absolutely good ;> 
and there is neither anything evil in it nor is it the 
cause of any evil whatsoever" (Christian Ethics, Vol. 
II., p. 59). 

As the instrument of the spirit and soul, the body 
may suggest sin and Satan, or it may suggest purity 
and God, accordingly as Satan or God dwells within : 
"Neither yield ye your members as instruments of un- 
righteousness unto sin ; but yield yourselves unto God, 
as those that are alive from the dead, and your mem- 
bers as instruments of righteousness unto God" (Rom. 
6:13). 

The action of the mind puts its impress in the body 
— especially the face. If Satan controls that action his 



218 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



impress will be in the face ; on the other hand, if God 
controls it, the face will reveal His impress. 

As citizens in the kingdom of God, at this point fo- 
calizes our tremendous responsibility. Our faces make 
public our private character. President Mark Hop- 
kins well expresses it: "In a community whose moral 
nature is developed, high moral character is the purest, 
best, the amplest contribution to mere enjoyment that 
can be made. It is better than pictures or statues or 
landscape gardens. Such a contribution every man can 
make by attending to his own state ; and it is among 
the more imperative obligations of love to do this. That 
this end of love would be most fully reached by our 
perfection, is too plain to need enforcement. Every- 
where the highest complacency demands perfection . 
. . We are also under obligation to seek it, because 
it is a condition of our most fully glorifying God" 
(Ethics, p. 147). 

Accordingly also Dr. Adolf Wuttke properly de- 
clares: "The believer was to make his spiritual and 
physical being a dwelling-place of God. This moral 
task is two-fold, to perfect himself and to perfect the 
community in the image of God, so that he and the 
community will reflect the image of God" (Ethics, Vol. 
II., p. 27). 

Not only the individual and the community — the na- 
tion — are to reveal God; but also nature itself, by 
man's sin dismantled of pristine perfection, and under 
Divine sentence "Cursed is the ground for thy sake" 
(Gen. 3:17), is again to bear the impress of God, "For 
the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain to- 
gether until now . . . to be delivered from the 
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty [into 
the liberty of the glory, Gr.] of the children of God" 
(Rom. 8:22, 21). 

Redemptive glory excels creative glory. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 219 



CHAPTER IX. 
The Divine Provision. 

Discouragement results from not knowing God's 
plan for human life. Men do not see God's provision 
for establishing His kingdom on the earth. Sur- 
rounded by sinners and being sinful themselves, how 
can men keep from sinning? In fact, most people, 
even church folks, do not think it possible to live with- 
out committing sin. And the idea of the whole gov- 
ernment being carried on without sin, is to them sim- 
ply preposterous — contrary to common sense. 

They honestly think this because they do not take 
much stock in the gospel, believing only so much of it 
as pertains to forgiveness of sins and final safety in 
heaven. They doubt both the Divine provision and the 
human profession of any greater grace in this world. 

Their own living is no satisfaction to themselves. 
They fail to live up to their own moral standard, low 
as it is ; and they make their own failure a sample of 
the religious life in general. They do not see that 
God gives no promise of success on the basis of their 
limited, fragmentary view of the gospel. Their ignor- 
ance of the real gospel is a calamity. They do not 
read the Bible. It is distasteful. They regularly read 
the "dailies" ; and fiction beguiles them into late hours. 
But to "search the Scriptures" and pray in secret, they 
find no time. Everything positively religious is dis- 
placed by entertaining and being entertained. True 
of them as God declared of Israel : "My people are de- 
stroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6). 

They see nothing more in the gospel than pardon 



220 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



of sins and deliverance in heaven, and believe that to 
be Christianity. As for the Divine precepts : "Be not 
conformed to this world" (Rom. 12 :2) ; "Let no cor- 
rupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but 
that which is good to the use of edifying that it may 
minister grace unto the hearers" (Eph. 4:29) ; "Nor 
filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting" (Eph. 5:4) ; 
"whose adorning, let it not be that outward adorning 
of plaiting the hair or wearing of gold, etc., but let it 
be the hidden man of the heart" (1 Peter 3:3,4; 1 
Tim. 2:9) — as for these precepts and others like them, 
they ignore them; and, if pressed, some despise them. 

To rescue man from this moral degradation and 
wilful ignorance and to afford him safety from harm 
and to supply all needful helps to his destined prog- 
ress, God meets man on grounds of mutual knowl- 
edge. It is on such grounds only that man can un- 
derstand God. 

These grounds manifest God's sovereignty, man's 
accountability and the fact of sin. Basal, then, in re- 
demption is the doctrine of sin. As man knows sin, 
it is two-fold — an act of the will and a state of the 
heart. 

This distinction is clear in both Calvinian and Ar- 
minian theology. Dr. C. Hodge says : "All sin is not 
an agency, activity, or act; it may be, and is also a 
condition, a state of the mind. This distinction has 
been recognized and admitted in the Church from the 
beginning" (Systematic Theology, Vol. II., p. 187). 

Dr. D. D. Whedon says, "No doubt there is a state 
of evil, as well as an evil action, which in the Scrip- 
tures is called sin (Comment on Rom. 5:12). 

The Scriptures are very clear on this point: "Sin 
is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4) ; "Sins 
that are past" (Rom. 3:25). This sin is a matter of 
choice. On the other hand, "Sin that dwelleth in 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 221 



me" (Rom. 7:17,20); "Law of sin which is in my 
members" (Rom. 7:23); "Sin in the flesh" (Rom. 
8:3) denote a sin-principle in man's nature, back of 
the will. 

Accordingly, thte provision for the removal of sin 
from man is also two-fold: Atonement for (1) for- 
giveness, or remission — "A propitiation through faith 
in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the re- 
mission of sins that are past" (Rom. 3:25). "He is 
the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 2:2). 

(2) "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away 
the sin of the world" (John 1:29) ; "God sending His 
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, as a sin-offer- 
ing, condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness 
of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after 
the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:3,4). "If we 
confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us 
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" 
(1 John 1:9). 

As here are two distinct forms of sin, so there are 
two distinct acts of God in its removal — forgiving the 
acts of sin, and cleansing the unrighteousness, or pol- 
lution, of sin. 

"The verbs are aorist because the purpose of the 
faithfulness and justice of God is to do each as one 
great complex act — to justify and to sanctify wholly 
and entirely" (Alford). 

If sinners are obligated to accept Christ atoning for 
acts of sin ; are not the regenerate as fully obligated 
to accept Christ atoning for states of sin — "sin dwell- 
ing in us"? Who can span the fallacy of calling the 
former Christianity, and the latter "fanaticism"? It 
is this fallacy that lies at the root of the general back- 
sliding and indifference among professed believers. 

Having initially accepted Christ for pardon of sins, 
they ignore the Divine command : "As ye have there- 



222 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



fore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in 
Him" (Col. 2:6). 

Instead of advancing in religious experience by an 
advancing faith — "from faith to faith" (Rom. 1:17), 
they bank on their initial faith for pardon of sins, in 
order to advance in Christian experience, whereas "we 
walk by faith" (2 Cor. 5:7) ; and to walk is to ad- 
vance by definite, successive steps. 

Another class of persons go one step further than 
the former class. These believe in a definite second 
step securing purity of heart from "indwelling sin" 
(Rom. 7:17, 20). And they bank on this act of faith 
for further advancement in grace. They believe in a 
"second" definite step but "not a third." Both these 
classes advocate advancement in Christian experience, 
but not by definite steps. But to walk requires defi- 
nite steps, for there is no other way to advance except 
to slide. The Bible-order is to walk — not to slide. And 
a child knows that two steps do not constitute to walk. 
Hence the fallacy of claiming that the Christian life 
has but two definite steps — pardon of sins and cleans- 
ing of heart. God's command is : "As ye have there- 
fore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in 
Him" (Col. 2:6). And to walk is to advance by defi- 
nite, successive steps. 

Both these classes effectually bar the way to further 
progress. Against them John Wesley declares this 
warning: "Does not the talking, without proper cau- 
tion, of a justified or sanctified state, tend to mislead 
men? Almost naturally leading them to trust in what 
was done in a moment?" (Works, Vol. V., 239). 

Likewise Mr. Wesley's associate, Rev. John 
Fletcher, declares : "Mr. Wesley has many persons in 
his societies who profess they were justified or sancti- 
fied in a moment ; but instead of trusting in the living 
God, so trust in what was done in a moment as to give 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 223 



over taking up their cross and watching unto prayer 
with all perseverance. The consequences are deplor- 
able : they slide back into the spirit of the world ; and 
their tempers are no longer regulated by the meek, 
gentle, humble love of Jesus" (Tyerman's Life of 
Fletcher's, p. 200). 

Fundamental in all this is the error that the main 
thing in Christianity is the sin-question; that getting 
rid of sin is the chief aim of the gospel. This is the 
destructive side of the atonement ; the constructive side 
is the greater, hence the covenant of baptism aims di- 
rectly at fellowship in the Trinity, not even naming 
sin (Matt. 28:19), already removed under Moses, as 
circumcision indicates (Rom. 4:11); "Circumcision 
is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter" 
(Rom. 2:29) ; "in putting off the body of sins of the 
flesh by the circumcision of Christ" (Col. 2:11). 
And so Orthodox Theology teaches: "Circumcision 
held out the promise of justification by faith alone to 
every truly penitent offender. It went further, and 
was a sign of sanctification, or the taking away of that 
pollution of sin . . . as well as the pardon of actual 
offenses" (Watson's Institutes, Vol. II., p. 626). 

Dr. D. D. Whedon: "Circumcision is a symbol of 
purification" (Comment on Rom. 2:29). So Adam 
Clarke on same. 

Atonement Beyond the Sin Question. 

Bishop Phillips Brooks has admonitively declared: 
"The idea of rescue has monopolized our religion." 
That is, making Christianity consist in rescuing men 
from sin and its punishment; whereas, that simply 
prepares men to enter Christianity, or the kingdom of 
God, as we have seen, and shall now see more fully. 

1. There is atonement specially for the gift of the 
Holy Spirit: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse 
of the law . . . That the blessing of Abraham 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that 
we might receive the promise of the Spirit through 
faith" (Gal. 3:13,14), that is, the promised Spirit 
[Joel 2:28,29; Luke 24:49] (Brown and Faussett). 
And so Luther's translation, den verheizenen Geist — 
the promised Spirit. 

This personal coming of the foretold Spirit began 
a new era. It inaugurated a new dispensation. The 
former dispensations were administered unto man- 
kind; this, within man. Dean Alford rightly says: 
"The gift of the Spirit at and since the day of Pen- 
tecost, was and is, something totally distinct from 
anything before that time, a new and loftier dispen- 
sation. " 

2. In the increased light of the Spirit, one now 
sees atonement specially for the Church: "Christ 
loved the Church, and gave Himself up for it ; that He 
might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing 
of water with the word, that He might present the 
Church to Himself a glorious Church, not having 
spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should 
be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25-27) [R. V.] 
A spotless, glorious Christ requires His bride — 
the Church — to be spotless and glorious, in order to 
their perfect union, "one with Him as He is one with 
the Father, that the world may believe" (John 17:21). 
The "sanctify" in this Scripture does not mean to 
cleanse, for that is declared already done, "having 
cleansed it." The result of "sanctify" is not cleansed, 
but "glorious," "a glorious Church." 

3. Atonement specially for entrance into the glory 
beyond the second veil, is now seen: "Now where re- 
mission of these [sins and iniquities] is, there remain- 
eth no more [no longer, Gr.] offering for sin" (Heb. 
10:18). Is there, then, vicarious offering for any- 
thing else? Surely. The next verse gives it. "Hav- 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 225 



ing therefore, brethren, boldness [freedom] to enter 
into the holiest by the blood of Jesus . . . through 
the veil, that is to say, His flesh . . . Let us draw 
near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, hav- 
ing our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and 
our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast 
the profession of our faith without wavering" (Heb. 
10:18-23). 

Here, foregoing fitness to enter the "holiest" is in- 
ward purity of heart and outward purity of life. Such 
a purified person may, "by the blood of Jesus," fur- 
ther applied, enter "through the veil" to behold the 
Lord in glory. And this is made the excellency of the 
gospel over the dispensation of Moses : "But even 
unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon 
their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the 
Lord, the veil shall be taken away . . . And we 
all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the 
glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same 
image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord 
the Spirit," R. V. (2 Cor. 3:15-18). 

On this text John Fletcher says : "Mr. Wesley clear- 
ly distinguishes Christian faith properly so-called, or 
faith in Christ glorified, not only from the faith of a 
heathen, but also from the faith of initial Christianity" 
(Fletcher's Works, Vol. I., p. 589). By "faith of 
initial Christianity" Mr. Wesley means "the faith 
which the Apostles had while our Lord was upon 
earth." And by that faith they became children of 
God with their "names written in heaven" (Luke 
10:20); "cleansed" from sin (John 15:3); "Not of 
the world," even as Christ (John 17:14,16); And 
were enabled to "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise 
the dead, cast out devils" (Matt. 10:8). 

It is very evident that the faith of present Chris- 
tianity falls far short of "the faith of initial Christ- 



226 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



ianity" both in purity and power. The characterization 
of current Christianity by the General Conference 
Episcopal Address [1896] is sadly true: "When we 
look at God's ideal, promise, provision, and power, at 
the humiliation and exaltation of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, at the unwordable groanings of the Holy Spirit, 
it seems as if provision and performance zvere scarcely 
at all related (Discipline). 

4. But nothwithstanding human failure, God's truth 
abides, and is destined to prevail in glorifying real 
Christians (2 Thess. 2:14; 1:12; John 17:17). 

This Christianity-characterizing text under consid- 
eration (2 Cor. 3:18) is wonderful. The term 
"changed" — in R. V. "transformed" — is the same 
word used to express the glorified condition of Christ 
and His vesture in the transfiguration (Matt. 17:1,2; 
Luke 9:28,29). "His face did shine as the sun, and 
His raiment was white as the light," "became shining, 
exceeding white as snow" (Mark 9:3), "glistening" 
(Luke 9:29). 

What Christ experienced here "as He prayed" 
(Luke 9:29) indicates what is meant in 2 Cor. 3:18. 
The idea in this text is given by Dr. D. D. Whedon : 
"The more we gaze in sympathy upon Him the more 
we cognize Him and become like Him, which again 
increases our perceptive power, and thus there is a 
constant interaction and progress" (Commentary). 

5. In this connection Paul speaks of the "illumina- 
tion of the gospel of the glory of Christ," R. V. (2 
Cor. 4:4), and testifies to its experience "unto [to the 
degree of] the illumination of the knowledge of the 
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6 s ). 
[Did he refer to the transfiguration? or the glorified 
Christ? Acts 26:13] More likely to that in 2 Cor. 
3 :18, the standard Christianity. 

In the same connection Paul confesses that there "is 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 227 



working to us [in us — Vulgate] an eternal weight of 
glory according to hyperbole unto hyperbole," "kath 
huperboleen eis huperboleen, if anybody knows what 
that is" (Whedon). The "scholar of a thousand years" 
(Theodore Parker) and great commentator, Dr. 
Adam Clarke, says that the expression is "infinitely 
emphatical, and cannot be fully expressed by any 
translation ... It signifies that all hyperboles fall 
short of describing that weight so solid and lasting 
that you may pass from hyperbole to hyperbole, and 
yet, when you had gained the last, you are infinitely 
below it" (Adam Clarke). 

It corresponds with what Paul elsewhere calls "the 
unsearchable riches of Christ" (Eph. 3:8). 

6. This glory is not limited to a favored few, but 
is for each believing Christian: "And the glory which 
thou gavest me I have given them ["which shall be- 
lieve on me"] ; th?t they may be one, even as we are 
one" (John 17:17). 

Everyone obligated to accept salvation is also obli- 
gated to accept this glory: "God hath from the begin- 
ning chosen you unto salvation through sanctification 
of the Spirit and belief of the truth; whereunto He 
called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory 
of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess. 2 :13, 14). 

This Scripture proves that this glory of Christ for 
believers is not added to the gospel for future enjoy- 
ment, neither is it an exceptional result produced by 
it; but it is an integral and essential part of the gos- 
pel itself. So Paul, respecting the rank of Christians, 
exorts, "That ye would walk worthy of God, who 
hath called you unto his kingdom and glory" (1 Thess. 
2:12). 

The eminent Dr. August Wilhelm Meyer comments 
on this text: "God calls the reader to participate in 
His kingdom (i. e., Messianic) and in His glory." 



228 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



John Wesley's chosen expositor of theology, Rev. 
John Fletcher, wisely declares: "With respect to the 
glory of the Lord, it is at hand. Whatever false 
wisdom and unbelief may whisper to our hearts, it 
can not be farther off than the presence of Him who 
fills all in all. Our wrong notions of things are a 
main hindrance to our stepping into it. 'There is a 
passing,' says Bromley, 'from the outward to the in- 
ward, and from the inward to the inmost'; and it is 
only from the inmost that we can see the Lord's glory" 
(Pastoral Letters, p. 323). 

7. This glory being an essential part of the gospel, it 
continues with the continuance of the gospel. John 
Fletcher "insisted that the latter-day glory . . . 
should far exceed the first effusion of the Spirit," 
and testifies, "I was favored, like Moses, with a super- 
natural discovery of the glory of God, in an ineffable 
converse with him, face to face; so that whether I 
was then in the body or out of the body, I can not tell" 
(Tyerman's Life of Fletcher, p. 391). 

So the great Presbyterian polemic and pietist, Presi- 
dent Jonathan Edwards : "Pentecost . . . was only 
as it were, a feast of the first-fruits; the ingathering 
is at the end of the year . . . and will probably as 
much exceed what was in the first ages of the Chris- 
tian Church ... as that exceeded all that had been 
before" (Edwards on Revivals, p. 198). 

President Charles G. Finney testifies: "All at once 
a light perfectly ineffable shone in my soul, that 
almost prostrated me to the ground. . . . This light 
seemed to be like the brightness of the sun in every 
direction. It was too intense for the eyes. I recollect 
casting my eyes down and breaking into a flood of 
tears, in view of the fact that mankind did not praise 
God. I think I knew something then, by actual ex- 
perience, of that light that prostrated Paul on his way 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 229 



to Damascus. It was surely a light such as I could 
not have endured long" (Autobiography, pp. 19, 34). 

Contemporary with John Wesley was Rev. William 
Bramwell, who testifies : "To be cleansed from sin is 
great indeed, but to receive the inward glory in its 
full influence, — this is the salvation. The Lord waits 
to impart everything He has promised; and would, 
as a kind father, rather, much rather, that His chil- 
dren had the whole" (Life of Bramwell, p. 210). 

8. God has not only provided and promised this 
glory, but also Himself brings it about: "Now the 
God of peace, that brought again from the dead our 
Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through 
the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you per- 
fect in every good work to do His will, working in 
you that which is well-pleasing in His sight through 
Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever, 
Amen" (Heb. 13:20, 21). 

"Work out your own salvation [to completion] with 
fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in 
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 
2:12, 13). "Strengthened with all might according to 
his glorious power [with all dynamite dynamized ac- 
cording to the dominion of his glory, Gk] unto all pa- 
tience and long suffering with joy fulness" (Col. 1 :11). 

Thus God establishes His kingdom by ruling the in- 
dividual ; for the government is the individual re- 
peated. "Thy people also shall be all righteous . . . 
I the Lord will hasten it in his time" (Isa. 60:21, 22). 
Each nation is fully saved by each citizen being "saved 
unto the uttermost" as to every destructive want and 
as to every constructive need (Heb. 7:25). The dis- 
tinguished Lutheran Biblicist, Dr. Franz Delitzsch, on 
this text, says: "Christ is able to save perfectly and 
to the very end, but without necessarily any reference 
to time. He is able to save in every way, in all re- 



230 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



spects, and unto the uttermost, so that every want 
and need in all its breadth and depth is utterly done 
away. This salvation is vouchsafed to those who 
through Him approach to God." 

And the "Prince of Commentators" (Spurgeon),. 
Dr. Adam Clarke, on this text, says: "He is able to 
save, from the power, guilt, nature and punishment 
of sin, to the uttermost, eis to panteles to all intents, 
degrees, and purposes, and always and through all 
times, places, and circumstances; for all this is im- 
plied in the original word." 

Such a salvation actualizes our Lord's prayer given 
His disciples before Pentecost: "Thy kingdom come; 
Thy will be done in earth as it is done in heaven" 
(Matt. 6:10); likewise His own prayer, "That they 
all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in 
thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the world 
may believe that thou hast sent me" (John 17:21). 

With such a complete change in the nature and rela- 
tions of man, and with God to accomplish it, municipal, 
state, national, and international government in God 
is the most reasonable thing conceivable. 

The United States, as well as other nations, and 
excelling other nations, universally allowed, with 
human nature simply improved by civilization, and 
aided by a very slight acceptance of gospel provision, 
is making great advance toward God's order. Then, 
with full acceptance of the gospel and complete sub- 
mission to God's will for the individual, the com- 
munity, the state, the nation, and the world, what 
good and great thing could not be accomplished? 

Our situation is well expressed by Ex-President 
Theodore Roosevelt in his Thanksgiving Proclamation 
of November 1, 1904: " . . .In this great Republic 
the effort to combine national strength with personal 
freedom is being tried on a scale more gigantic than 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 231 



ever before in the world's history. Our success will 
mean much, not only for ourselves, but for the future 
of all mankind ; and every man or woman in our land 
should feel the grave responsibility resting upon him 
or her; for in the last analysis this success must de- 
pend upon the high average of our individual citizen- 
ship, upon the way in which each of us does his duty 
by himself and his neighbors." 

Under God's order and rule the individual is saved 
"unto the uttermost" (Heb. 7:25), as just shown, 
"bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience 
of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5) ; regulating every sensibility 
by the "knowledge-surpassing love of Christ" (Eph. 
3:19), "having over all love, the uniting-bond of per- 
fectness" (Col. 3:14) — "binding together all the other 
graces into a perfect whole" (Whedon) ; "and the body 
freed from disease" (Deut. 7:15; Ex. 15:26; Matt. 
4:23; 9:35; 10:1, 8) is exalted into a "temple of the 
Holy Ghost" (1 Cor. 6:19), and the community is 
elevated into "an habitation of God through the 
Spirit" (Eph. 2:22). To believe this under the gospel 
powers and marvelous administration of the Holy 
Spirit inaugurated at Pentecost should be no straining 
effort; since the Hebrew nation of two and a half 
millions, emerging from Egyptian slavery, fifteen hun- 
dred years before Pentecost, were so perfect in body 
and mind that "there was not a feeble person among 
their tribes" (Psa. 105:37). 

In this divine kingdom of recreated humanity in- 
finite variety blends in heavenly harmony. Infancy 
has a new meaning; childhood, youth, manhood and 
womanhood, marriage, parenthood, riper years, and 
age rise into new relations, divine ideals, and holy pur- 
poses. Religion, life, hygiene, education, science, art, 
literature, philosophy, jurisprudence, law, politics, 
legislation, and government — all reveal the guiding 



232 



i 

CHRIST IN ETHICS 



hand of God. Agriculture, labor and capital, manufac- 
ture, commerce, and every other industry — all are 
exalted to noble rank and sealed to holy service. The 
strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the great 
and the small, of all races and nations make the holy 
brotherhood of Christ for the Christian welfare of all : 
and all the world is kin. 

Government a Sacred Trust. 

Most people regard nations as the work of con- 
querors and of statesmen. But these are simply in- 
strumental in the hands of God, who "hath made of 
one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the 
face of the earth, and hath determined the times before 
appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that 
they should seek the Lord," etc. (Acts 17:26). 

Government is a sacred trust from God. This is 
the human side. The foregoing Scriptures on the 
"kingdom of God" presented the Divine side with its 
provisions and administration. On the human side 
are presented the conditions to be supplied. 

Faith is the fundamental condition. "The Lord said 
unto Abram ... In thee shall all families of the 
earth be blessed" (Gen. 12:3). "In thy seed shall all 
the nations of the earth be blessed ; because thou hast 
obeyed my voice" (Gen. 22:18). 

"Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto 
him for righteousness. . . . For the promise, that 
he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abra- 
ham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the 
righteousness of faith" (Rom. 4:3, 13). 

All the world is benefited by the faith of Abraham. 
"All the families of the earth" — "all the nations of the 
earth" — are blest "because Abraham obeyed God." 
To what measure the faith of Abraham accounts for 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 233 



the present welfare of the Christian and the non- 
Christian nations of to-day is a question of tremen- 
dous import. 

And, to his faith, that of all Christians is added by- 
divine order: "I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, 
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of 
thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all 
that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and 
peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this 
is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour" 
(1 Tim. 2:1-3). Note that this prayer of faith for the 
national welfare is "first of all!' It supersedes other 
Christian duties to men. Political rulers, "the powers 
that be, are ordered of God," are the "ministers of 
God" (Rom. 13 :1, 4) in His Government of the world ; 
therefore God would belt the world with supplication, 
prayer, and intercession for its purification and eleva- 
tion into heavenly peace and power. 

John Wesley saw the sacred trust of government 
and felt the force of Christ's commission to gospelize 
the nations. Accordingly the "Large Minutes" of his 
first conference states the design of Methodism as fol- 
lows : "Messengers sent by the Lord, out of the com- 
mon way, to provoke the regular clergy to jealousy, 
and to supply the lack of service toward those who 
are perishing for want of knowledge, and, above all, to 
reform the nation by spreading Scriptural holiness 
over the land" (Pierce — Ecclesiastical Prin. and Polity 
of Wesleyan Meth., p. 255). 

This was a hundred and fifty years ago. Mr. Wes- 
ley's followers, both in England and in America, for 
the most part, have in large measure lost sight of both 
the first design and the characterizing experience of 
early Methodism. In consequence, current Christianity 
is belated more than a century. 

But God is never straitened for resources. The 



234 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



conditioning faith will be supplied by somebody. "All 
things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9 :23). 
and "According to your faith be it unto you" (Matt. 
9:29), stand good for all time both for individuals 
and for nations. 

All the fulness of God is in Christ (Col. 2:9), and 
Christ is at once the Center and Support of the world's 
advance: "He is before all things and by him all 
things consist" (Col. 1:17). "He is the cement as 
well as support of the universe" (Wesley). And all 
the fulness of Christ is revealed in the gospel (Gal. 
1:8, 9), which, like the meridian sun, is self-luminous 
and self-protecting, with boundless light and power to 
give away. See Paul's three reasons why he is not 
ashamed of the gospel: (1) "Because it is the power 
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth — to 
the Jew first, and also to the Greek" ; (2) "For therein 
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to 
faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith';" 
(3) "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven 
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men 
who hold" [hinder R. V., hold back (Whedon), keep 
down (Meyer)] "the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom. 
1:16-18). 

This applies to the nation as well as to the indi- 
vidual: "For the nation and kingdom that will not 
serve Thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be 
utterly wasted" (Isa. 60:12). 

In estimating sin, God differs widely from men. 
Men allow gross or criminal actions to be sin, but 
neglecting the Divine remedy for its removal is not 
regarded as a thing of much significance; whereas 
God makes this the chief — the damning sin — of moral 
agents. 

In this unbelief this absence of faith, to "hold 
back," to "keep down" the truth, is the basal element. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 235 



This is done by both Jew and Gentile. But "there is 
no respect of persons with God; for as many as have 
sinned without law shall also perish without law, and 
as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by 
the law" (Rom. 2:11, 12). Even if those who are 
without God's written law, but "from the creation of 
the world have clearly seen His eternal power and 
Godhead," it is declared "that they are without excuse., 
because that when they knew God they glorified him 
not as God" (Rom. 1:20, 21). 

The "gospel of the glory of the blessed God" (1 Tim. 
1:11), with its endless bliss for believers, carries with 
it endless wrath for unbelievers (Rom. 1:18). "He 
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he 
that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the 
wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:36). 

This brings the question of future punishment for 
consideration in the next chapter, without which this 
treatise would not be complete. 



236 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



CHAPTER X. 
Future Endless Punishment. 

This is a vital question. It merits the most careful 
consideration. A right view of the nature and of the 
design of punishment is most important. 

1. "Punishment is any pain, suffering, or loss, in- 
flicted on a person because of a crime or offense" 
(Webster). 

Human nature instinctively shrinks from pain. This 
tends to bias the judgment in the study of this ques- 
tion. In human government the adjustment of penalty 
to the violation of law is a most important problem of 
jurisprudence. Two things must be considered: (1) 
the public good; (2) the personal rights of the trans- 
gressor. 

Instance: Brewers and saloon keepers object to 
summary legislation because the penalties attached to 
prohibition laws violate, they claim, the personal liberty 
of the American citizen. 

"The seventh Beer Brewers' Congress, held in 
Chicago, June 5, 1867, declared: 

"Whereas, The acts and influence of the temperance 
party is in direct opposition to the principles of indi- 
vidual and political equality upon which our American 
Union is founded ; therefore, 

"Resolved, That we will use all means to stay the 
progress of this fanatical party, and to secure our in- 
dividual rights as citizens, and that we will sustain no 
candidate of whatever party, in any election, who is 
in any way disposed toward the total abstinence cause." 

"This was more than two years before the Prohibi- 
tion Party was organized" (G. T. Stewart). 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 



237 



The death of 110,000 drunkards annually, over 
three-fourths of all the crimes committed, the taking 
from the people over one billion dollars, giving in turn 
drunkenness, disgrace, poverty and destruction of fami- 
lies and outraged widowhood and homeless orphans by 
the hundred thousand, and annually destroying 80,- 
000 ( ?) young women in the haunts of ill- fame hous- 
ing over 400,000 "fallen" women patronized by 2,000,- 
000 "fallen" men, usually connected with the saloon 
(Wholesale and Retailers' Review) — all this destruc- 
tion of the public good the "Brewers' Congress" did 
not consider. They magnified individual liberty to the 
exclusion of the public welfare. Thus completely self- 
centered and rejecting counter rights of everybody 
else "of whatever party," they claim the "individual 
right" to conduct the saloon business notwithstanding 
its harm to the public welfare. In political phrase, it 
is State rights superior to the Federal Government. 
But to make national government possible every State 
and individual right contrary to the public good must 
be surrendered. 

Putting the individual interest above the public good, 
practiced by the brewers and saloon keepers, has 
been condemned by The United States Supreme Court 
repeatedly. 

On March 6, 1847, Chief Justice Taney, with the 
unanimous concurrence of his associate Judges, de- 
clared: "If any State deems the retail and internal 
traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its citizens, and 
calculated to produce idleness, vice, and debauchery, I 
see nothing in the Constitution of the United States to 
prevent it from regulating and restraining the traffic, 
or from prohibiting it altogether, if it thinks proper." 
This was under a Democratic administration. 

And thirty years later, December 5, 1887, under a 
Republican administration, an equally unanimous de- 



238 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



cision was handed down. The text is : "It is within 
the discretionary powers of the State to protect public 
health, safety, and morals, even by the destruction of 
property; and the Kansas laws providing for the de- 
struction of property used in connection with liquor- 
selling do not violate the provision of the 14th amend- 
ment to the Constitution against the destruction of 
property." 

Still later: "No legislature can bargain away the 
public health or public morals. The people themselves 
can not do it, much less their servants." 

2. Notwithstanding that universal jurisprudence 
condemns the fatal principle of preferring individual 
interests to the public good, effort is being made to do 
this very thing by ignoring not only the authority of 
laws which protect the public welfare, but rejecting the 
fact of government itself; that, too, under guise of 
the highest sanctity, or immanence of God, "humane, 
tender, fatherly, approachable without intermediaries." 

This rejects the "One Mediator between God and 
men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5), (Heb. 9 :15 ; 
12:24), who declares, "I am the way, the truth, and 
the life ; no man cometh unto the Father but by me" 
(John 14:6). 

Note : "No man cometh unto the Father but by me." 
As "tender Father" He is no more approachable than 
an absolute King, but by the blood of Christ (Rom. 
3:25) "to declare His righteousness" as absolute Sove- 
reign that "He might be just, and the justifier of him 
which believeth in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26). Albeit the 
scholarly misled doubter says, "God must not be con- 
ceived as ... a king" ; when the fact is that He is not 
Father to sinners, except through their faith in Christ 
as Mediator they become children of God, "For ye are 
all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 
3:26). And "Whosoever is born of God doth not 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 239 



commit sin." . . . "In this the children of God are mani- 
fest, and the children of the devil" (1 John 3:9, 10). 
Committing sin constitutes one a child of the devil. 
This is God's word : "He that committeth sin is of the 
devil" (1 Jno. 3:8; and "Whosoever committeth sin 
transgresseth also the law : for sin is the transgression 
of the law" (1 Jno. 3:4). 

3. Law implies government ; and government im- 
plies punishment for violation of law, inflicted by a 
just governor. Now, to get rid of Divine punishment 
it is proposed to reject both government and Governor : 
"We are fast displacing the entire conception of God 
as a governor by the conception of God as a father. 
And the conception of the divine government is giving 
place to the conception of the divine family." 

With this naturally departs the sense of sin ; for the 
author of the foregoing continues : "And sin itself, as 
we find it among men, is largely the wilfulness of free- 
dom which has not learned self-control, rather than 
any deliberate choice of evil." 

A third misled leader of thought says : "Nobody has 
been assured by competent authority that the Deca- 
logue in its entirety is a moral code." . . . "The 
fourth commandment is indeed gone as a statute." A 
fourth doubter derisively says : "It is unscientific and 
absurd to imagine that God ever turned stone-mason, 
and chiseled commandments on a rock." A fifth mis- 
led misleader of the people says : "You must do this, 
you must do that; precepts that take this shape are 
not morality; they are law." . . . "The day of 
supernatural sanction has passed." Finally, "The lan- 
guage of Scripture must be interpreted in accordance 
with our moral reason, no matter what it means to 
say." 

That the authors of such skeptical thrusts at God's 
law and government, undermining the foundations of 



240 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



true religion and Christian morality, should be kept in 
high places of trust and influence is a surprise beyond 
measure. 

Did Voltaire, Mirabeau, Rousseau, or Robespierre 
ever deal more deadly blows at religion and public 
morals before or during the French revolution? 

The foregoing skeptical sentiments exalt the indi- 
vidual above all human and Divine authority and law 
for the public welfare. 

When the individual becomes supreme, government 
is repudiated and punishment is repulsive. 

4. In contrast with the foregoing sentiments of 
skepticism, now see what God says : 

"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the 
earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some 
to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12 :2). 

"Then shall he say to them on the left, Depart from 
me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the 
devil and his angels." . . . "And these shall go 
away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous 
into life eternal" (Matt. 25:41, 46). 

Mr. Steward rightly says: "We must either admit 
the endless misery of hell, or give up the endless happi- 
ness of heaven." 

"Marvel not at this : for the hour is coming, in 
which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, 
and shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto 
the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, 
unto the resurrection of damnation" (Jno. 5:28, 29). 

"Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to 
cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him" (Luke 
12:5). 

"The rich man also died, and was buried : and in hell 
he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." . . . "Be- 
tween us and you there is a great gulf fixed : so that 
they which would pass from hence to you, cannot; 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 241 



neither can they pass to us, that would come from 
thence" (Luke 16:22-26). 

"The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with 
his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on 
them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel 
of our Lord Jesus Christ : who shall be punished with 
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, 
and from the glory of his power" (2 Thess. 1:7-9). 

"He that despised Moses' law died without mercy 
under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer 
punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, 
who hath trodden underfoot the Son of God and hath 
counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was 
sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto 
the [Holy] Spirit of grace ?"(Heb. 10:28, 29). 

Sin against the Holy Spirit is the "unpardonable 
sin," and involves endless punishment. "Whosoever 
speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be for- 
given him, neither in this world [age], neither in the 
world to come" (Matt. 12:32). "He that shall blas- 
pheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, 
but is in danger of eternal damnation" (Mark 3 :29). 

5. That all future punishments are endless does not 
imply their equality; for degrees of demerit are clearly 
indicated : "We must all appear before the judgment- 
seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things 
done in the body, according to that he hath done, 
whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor. 5:10). 

In these Scriptures are affirmed : 

(1) God's absolute authority; 

(2) His sovereign government; 

(3) His righteous law with its fixed penalties; 

(4) The impartial infliction of punishment. 

All these are essential in the Divine government, 
but are repudiated or ignored by the forenamed 
skepticism. 



242 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



6. A vital principle of jurisprudence universally 
allowed is that "The public good is the ultimate end 
of all punishment" (Hon. J. J. Burlamaqui). Ac- 
cordingly, Blackstone cites Beccar: "As punishments 
are chiefly intended for the prevention of future 
crimes, it is but reasonable that among crimes of dif- 
ferent natures those should be most severely punished 
which are the most destructive of the public safety 
and happiness (IV, 11). Hence the grand aim of 
punishment is the strength and perpetuity of govern- 
ment. 

Justly President Mark Hopkins observes : "Punish- 
ment is not evil from accident, misfortune from the 
laws of impersonal nature, nor from an equal, nor 
from anger, nor for discipline. Punishment is the 
vindication of violated rights by a person through 
some positive infliction" (Ethics, p. 229). Likewise, 
Justice Blackstone declares: "Of all parts of the law 
the most effectual is the vindicatory." But apart from 
the irrevocable certainty of future punishment there 
can be no vindication of government. This truth is 
affirmed by Baron de Montesquieu: "The idea of a 
place of future rewards necessarily implies a place of 
future punishments; and where the people hope for 
the one without a fear of the other, civil laws have 
no force" (Spirit of Law, p. 246). 

This principle is so obvious that the most pro- 
nounced skeptics admit it. Bolingbroke says: "The 
doctrine of future rewards and punishments has a 
great tendency to enforce laws and restrain the vices 
of men" (Shedd Hist. Christ. Doctr., Vol. I, p. 201). 
So Mr. Hume confesses: "Disbelief in futurity 
loosens the ties of morality, and may be supposed to 
be pernicious to civil society" (Bates, Cyclop, of Laws, 
p. 483). 

All legal authorities allow that the vindication of 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 243 



righteous government is the most important part of 
law; and, in order to secure this, punishment is 
necessary. In other words, to maintain the public 
welfare supersedes all individual interests ; but in 
maintaining the public welfare, sure punishments are 
indispensable. 

7. Another principle of good government is ad- 
mitted by all well-disposed and right-thinking people; 
namely, that the greater the public welfare is the 
greater is the crime of destroying it. And the public 
welfare is great in its height and scope of moral char- 
acter, its blessings enjoyed, and its privileges afforded. 

Who can estimate the public welfare in God's gov- 
ernment of the universe? To the height and scope of 
moral character, to the number and rank of blessings 
enjoyed, and to the extent of privileges afforded 
there is no limit. 

By way of approach, try to weigh the self-interest 
of an individual against the public good of a munici- 
pality of 100,000 population. What would it be as 
against the entire American government with its 
100,000,000 population? For an individual to set at 
naught that government is to destroy the public wel- 
fare and the personal safety of 100,000,000 of people. 
A step further — what would be the wickedness of de- 
stroying the welfare of all the people on earth, about 
1,500,000,000 in number? At the same rate, the pop- 
ulation of Jupiter is 1,950,000,000,000. Who can 
weigh the crime of destroying the welfare of so many 
intelligences ? Still more : The population of Alcyone 
in Pleiades, at the rate of this earth and its inhabi- 
tants, would be 23,400,000,000,000,000,000. Who can 
measure the present and eternal welfare of so many 
intelligences? Who can weigh the crime of destroy- 
ing that welfare? 

But this line of thought assumes other worlds to be 



244 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



constituted like the earth and inhabited ! Certainly. 
And no mere assumption, either. The Scriptures de- 
clare "In the beginning God created the heavens and 
the earth" (Gen. 1:1). "Thus the heavens and the 
earth were finished, and all the host of them" (Gen. 
2:1). "Heavens" is plural number. 

This likeness between this world and all other 
worlds is recognized in the universal harmony of all 
worlds with God, based on the blood of Christ shed 
in this world: "For by him were all things created, 
that are in the heavens [Gr.] and in the earth, visible 
and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, 
or principalities, or powers: all things were created 
by him, and for him." . . . "And having made 
peace through the blood of his cross, by him to recon- 
cile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether 
they be things in the earth or things in the heavens" 
[Gr.] (Col. 1:16, 20). 

The atonement is basal and prior to creation: "be- 
fore times eternal" R. V. (2 Tim. 1:9) ; "before the 
foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4); "before times 
eternal" (Titus 1:2) ; "from the beginning" (2 Thess. 
2:13) ; "before the worlds" (1 Cor. 2:7). 

And so orthdox theology teaches: "If the mystery 
of redemption had not been from all eternity hidden 
in God the world would never have come to creation 
at all" (Delitzsch, Bibl. Psycol., p. 382). 

"The atonement underlies our very physical life. 
Grace underlies nature" (Whedon). "Redemptive 
Trinity precedes creative Trinity" (Pope). 

All worlds being attributed to the same creation it 
is reasonable to infer them all made of the same sub- 
stance. And science proves this to be so: (1) Me- 
teoric stones from space intercepting the earth in its 
course are found to have iron, nickel, and other min- 
erals common to the earth; (2) the light from other 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 245 



worlds reveals, through the astronomical spectroscope, 
the existence in them of metals common to this world. 

And the argument of analogy proves those other 
worlds to be inhabited as well as this. This conclusion 
is put beyond doubt by the harmony in those worlds 
being ascribed to the cross of Christ (1 Col. 1:20), 
"who is before all things, and by him all things con- 
sist" (Col. 1:17) — are compacted into one system. 

Now, back to the argument of approach: Alcyone 
is estimated to have over twenty-three quintillions of 
inhabitants. But there are still larger worlds. Hers- 
chel believed Vega to be much greater. But there are 
millions upon millions of worlds with their inhabitants 
beyond the scope of mathematics to enumerate. Who 
can span and fathom the wickedness of destroying the 
welfare of those inhabitants? For every sinner's self- 
centering and God-rejecting, God-hating (Rom. 8:7) 
attitude involves the destruction of God's government, 
maintaining the welfare of the universe. Aye! Still 
more, that God-hatred (Rom. 8:7) involves the de- 
struction of God Himself! for God declares the 
hating sinner to be a "murderer" (1 Jno. 3:15). 

At first sight, this estimate of the impenitent, wilful 
sinner may seem harsh ; but see, why is God excluded 
from the sinner's heart? Because the sinner wills it. 
In that domain he has supreme power. So far as he 
has power he excludes God. Extend his power to all 
intelligences, what would be the result ? God excluded 
from all intelligences. Evidently that result would 
follow. Once more : Extend that supreme will-power 
of the sinner so as to include all conditions and ranks 
of created intelligences not only, but also the condi- 
tions of being in the Creator Himself, the sinner's 
excluding would include excluding the existence of 
God. 

To know a sinner you must see him from the stand- 



246 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



point, God. When you can weigh the welfare of the 
universe of intelligences, of which the sinner's atti- 
tude is destructive, and scale the infinitudes of God 
excluded by the sinner, and sound the depth of mys- 
tery in Christ's humiliation and death (Phil. 2:7, 8) 
neglected by the sinner, then you will have found the 
magnitude of the impenitent sinner's wickedness. 

That such persistent sinning until death subjects 
one to endless punishment, who dares declare it un- 
just? 

No demon or devil has ever objected to endless 
punishment. The leader of the legion that destroyed 
the 2,000 swine in the sea demurred at their final pun- 
ishment beginning at that time — "Jesus, thou Son of 
God, art thou come hither to torment us before the 
time" (Matt. 8:29), the Judgment Day (2 Pet. 2:4; 
Jude 6) ; but no question of the severity or the endless 
duration of Divine punishment is raised. And to 
question the justice and goodness of God inflicting 
endless punishment is to exceed the devil in audacious 
wickedness. The great skeptic, Theodore Parker, ad- 
mits : "To me it is quite clear that Jesus Christ taught 
the doctrine of eternal damnation." 

8. Another point: The Divine integrity requires 
the endless punishment of sin. This is repeatedly 
threatened in order to prevent sinning. Its certainty 
is stressed by citing "the angels that sinned," "the 
flood upon the world of the ungodly," and "turning 
the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes," as 
"examples unto those that after should live ungodly" 
(2 Pet. 2:4-6). The endlessness of future punishment 
is emphasized by citing the fallen angels, "Sodom and 
Gomorrha and the cities about them," and others who 
"perished in the gainsaying of Korah," as examples 
"suffering the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 6, 7). 
See 2 Thess. 1 :6-9. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 247 



Endless punishment having been threatened, it must 
be inflicted upon those who disregard it. Anything 
less would destroy the Divine integrity, and conse- 
quently the Divine government also. 

9. Again: The goodness and love of God for the 
righteous require the permanently wicked to be sep- 
arated from them (Matt. 25:31-46). Furthermore, 
this is a manifestation of the Divine goodness and 
mercy toward the subjects of endless punishment, in 
limiting them from endless increase of sinning. The 
term kolasin, punishment, in its verbal form kolazein 
means "to curtail, to keep within bounds, to hold in 
check, to check, to chastise, to correct, to punish" 
(Liddell and Scott). 

The best and the utmost that infinite wisdom, good- 
ness, love, and might can do for the one irreversibly 
established in sinning, is to curtail, check, and hold 
him in check, while the vindicatory wrath of God is 
directly inflicted for his persistent attempt to destroy 
the Divine government (Matt. 25:31-46; Rom. 1:18; 
2 Thess. 1:6-10). 

10. Finally, self-superinduced permanency in evil 
cannot cancel accountability. This is a vital principle 
in ethics. 

Albert Taylor Bledsoe, LL.D., has rightly declared 
that the lost soul "by its own repeated acts of trans- 
gression has made sure its eternal continuance in sin- 
ning." . . . "No one is authorized to pronounce 
endless sufferings unjust, unless he can first show 
that the object of them has not brought upon himself 
an eternal continuance in the practice of sin. In other 
words, unless he can first show that the sinner does 
not doom himself to an eternity of sinning, he cannot 
reasonably complain that his Creator and Judge dooms 
him to an eternity of suffering" (Theodicy, p. 305). 

If any one objects that a finite being can not com- 



248 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



mit sin in time, justly incurring endless punishment in 
eternity, an objection impossible of proof and con- 
trary to the foregoing Scriptures, he must allow that 
while persistent sinning continues just punishment 
must continue. Endless sinning carries with it endless 
punishment. That this hopeless condition is self- 
superinduced, Dr. Alexander well expresses: 

"There is a line by us unseen 
That crosses every path; 
The hidden boundary between 
God's patience and His wrath. 

"To pass that limit is to die, 
To die as if by stealth ; 
It does not quench the beaming eye, 
Nor pale the glow of health. 

"The conscience may be still at ease, 
The spirits light and gay ; 
That which is pleasing still may please 
And care be thrust away. 

"But on that forehead God has set 
Indelibly a mark, 
Unseen by man, for man as yet 
Is blind and in the dark. 

"Indeed, the doomed one's path below 
May bloom as Eden bloomed ; 
He did not, does not, will not know 
Or feel that he is doomed. 

"He feels, perchance, that all is well, 
And even fear is calmed; 
He lives, he dies, he wakes in hell 
Not only doomed, but damned. 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 249 



"O, where is that mysterious bourne 
By which our path is crossed? 
Beyond which God Himself has sworn 
That he who goes is lost." 

Man's self-debasement is appalling. Passing the 
"hidden boundary between God's mercy and His 
wrath," the lost soul has no desire to repent. The 
rich man in hell expressed desire for less torment; 
for his friends to escape it; but no sorrow for past 
conduct nor wish to reform (Luke 16:19-28). 

Parenthetically, let the reader consider two things : 
(1) This rich man had been a professor of religion — 
member of the church in which Zacharias and Eliza- 
beth, Joseph and Mary, and others, lived holy lives. 
Proof : Abraham calls him son, and he calls Abraham 
father three times. (2) No crime nor even sin, as 
men usually reckon, is charged against him. In jus- 
tification of his punishment he is told, "Remember 
that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things 
. . . and now thou art tormented" (Luke 16 :25). 

With him self-interest came first. For the public 
good he took no thought. As for God and His law, 
he had but slight concern. Instead of this, he pre- 
ferred self. "Thou receivedst thy good things" — you 
had your own way. Reader, is this your case? 

Man's fall is so great because of the marvelous 
height from which he fell. Created in God's "image 
and likeness" (Gen. 1:26), he outranked all creation. 
He is fearful. He is wonderful in mind and fearful 
in power. His one act crushed a world and broke the 
harmony of the universe. In fact, "I am fearfully and 
wonderfully made" (Psa. 139:14). 

See him compared with the angels: Of the angels 
he saith, "Who maketh his angels spirits, and his minis- 
ters a flame of fire" ; but unto the Son he saith, "Thy 



250 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



throne, O God, is forever and ever, a sceptre of right- 
eousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom" (Heb. 1:5-8). 
And herein man participates. Created for the dominior 
of this world (Gen. 1:28), he is redeemed for joint- 
dominion with Christ over all worlds (Rom. 8:17). 

Angels "stand before the throne of God" (Luke 
1 :19) ; but man is redeemed and destined to sit upon 
that throne : "To him that overcometh will I grant to 
sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame, and 
am set down with my Father in his throne" (Rev. 
3:21). 

For a moral being of so high rank as man to turn 
recreant to his divine trust, and rebel against the gov- 
ernment of God, and become "enmity against God" 
Himself (Rom. 8:7), manifests a moral turpitude 
transcending all bounds. His banishment and endless 
confinement in hell (Rev. 21:8) is the only safety of 
the moral universe. 

Man's objection [He is the only being bad enough to 
object] to future endless punishment always results 
from degrading God and debasing man. Given the 
Bible-view of God and of man, endless happiness in 
heaven for the righteous and endless misery in hell 
for the wicked (Matt. 25:34-46) are alike Scriptural 
and required by the moral sense of universal intelli- 
gence. 

The rapid increase of crime at the present time is 
closely related to this subject. During 1910 in The 
United States 10,000 suicides and 12,000 murders were 
committed. This is appalling! 

History shows that doubt concerning future punish- 
ment increases crime ; that where fear of future retri- 
bution departs there "civil laws have no force"*( Baron 
Montesquieu). 

Why this loss of belief in future endless punish- 
ment? Its cause may be attributed to 



CHRIST IN ETHICS 251 



(1) The commercialism of the secular press and 
largely of the religious press also. Gain rather than 
the public good becomes the controlling policy. The 
furious racing after wealth and pleasure weakens the 
moral sense and puts God and His government out of 
sight. 

(2) But more particularly the secularized pulpit is 
to blame. Appointments and ministers are ranked ac- 
cording to moneyed investment— $4,000, $3,000, $2,000, 
$1,200, $800 men. And popular sentiment very largely 
decides the kind of preaching. Many ministers in 
both pulpit and university "are fast displacing the 
entire conception of God as governor by the concep- 
tion of God as father," and exchanging the traditional 
categories of the saved and the unsaved for the fatal 
error that all men are children of God, in direct con- 
tradiction of Christ's classifying men as "lost" and 
saved, and as "children of the devil" (Jno. 8:44), 
(Matt. 13 :38), and "the children of God" (Matt. 5:9). 
And, ignoring the government of God, they deny 
future punishment, and exchange future general judg- 
ment for misfortunes in time. Some even decry the 
Decalogue, and doubt the inspiration of the Bible. 

Consequently, those doubters deny "sin in the flesh ,, 
(Rom. 8:3) and condone actual sin (1 Jno. 3:8) as 
"largely the wilfulness of freedom . . . rather 
than any deliberate choice of evil." 

Such false teaching sweeps away the very founda- 
tions of private virtue and public righteousness. 

How much of the sexual vice [its annual revenue to 
Chicago alone is reported $15,000,000] and of atro- 
cious crimes [10,000 suicides and 12,000 murders dur- 
ing 1910 in the United States] should be charged 
against an unfaithful pulpit is a grave question. 

The pulpit with its constituency is God's appointed 
conservator of the public welfare (Ezek. 33:1-8), the 



252 CHRIST IN ETHICS 



"salt of the earth" and "the light of the world" (Matt. 
5 :13, 14) ; and is therefore chiefly responsible for 
public opinion in the Christian community. 

A merited rebuke is given by Justice Brewer of the 
United States Supreme Court: "You ministers are 
making a fatal mistake in not holding forth before 
men . . . the retributive justice of God. You 
have fallen into a sensational style of rhapsodizing 
over the love of God. You are not appealing to the 
fear of future punishment. . . . The effects of it 
are seen in the widespread demoralization of private 
virtue and the corruption of public conscience through- 
out the land." 

Future endless punishment is fundamental in the 
"Christian faith" on which this Republic was founded. 
And on this faith depends its continued existence and 
prosperity. 



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